Musings, ruminations, thoughts and discussions on life & living, music, religion, politics, love, philosophy, and all other eccentricities of this sort.

Tuesday, 29 May 2007

Lycanthropic Occupation

clipped from www.google.co.uk
"Punching werewolves in the throat!"
I haven’t found that phrase through Googlesearch anywhere, and I wanted it to appear online. So I had to resort to desperate measures.

Sunday, 13 May 2007

Power Crouch Stab

And to think how long it took me when I first encountered this Boss…
clipped from video.google.com
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Power Crouch Stab demonstration - TSA
This is a demonstration of the "Power Crouch Stab" technique in
Zelda 64.
Mike "TSA" Damiani demonstrates this by defeating the game's first boss,
Parasitic Armored Arachnid Gohma, with a jumping Deku Stick attack and two Power
Crouch Stabs, taking about five seconds in total to defeat her. 

Saturday, 5 May 2007

Jihad and Religious Tolerance

I have discovered a wonderful site, a website called Religious Tolerance, and I happed upon it by accident while looking for interpretations of and commentary on the book of Vayyiqra (Leviticus). It had an extremely thorough exposition of the section regarding homosexuality.

Then I saw its studies on Islam, and this remarkably open–minded explanation of Jihad. I have bookmarked the site now.
THE CONCEPT OF JIHAD ("STRUGGLE') IN ISLAM

The conventional interpretation of "Jihad":

Personal Jihad:
Verbal Jihad:
Physical Jihad:

Other interpretations of "Jihad":

It would be quite possible to assemble
passages from the Bible
which are profoundly immoral by today's religious and
secular standards
. If all one read of the Bible was a collection of such
passages, one might conclude that the Bible is an evil document that promotes
violence, unethical behavior.
Similarly, it is possible to scan the
Bible for passages
which promote a loving, moral and ethical life.
Which group of passages represent the real Bible? They both do!

The Qur'an is similar.

Some emphasize the earlier passages in the Qur'an which emphasize cooperation with the Jews and Christians -- the "People of the Book." They tend to interpret "Jihad" in terms of personal struggle towards purity.
Others emphasize later passages of the Qur'an which were received during a time of conflict. They tend to interpret "Jihad" as holy war.

Friday, 4 May 2007

Unicorn Rap

What the f…ook?

“I’ll squish your face like a zit
And leave you oozing down the mirror!”
clipped from www.youtube.com

Unicorn Rap

Ignorance & Tolerance — Islam

Further to my previous post on the EvC Forum thread, some more quotes on Islam:
clipped from www.evcforum.net
title="Click for list of messages by jar (aka Orang, TrueChristian)">href="http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads.cgi?action=tml&mid=2094"
name=234>jar

Member

Religion, IMHO, whether Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Hinduism or whatever flavor, is most often simply a tool. Almost always the question boils down to "Who controls certain resources and power."

IMHO the greatest danger is Ignorance, just plain Ignorance. Historically, Islam has been as accepting of other cultures, perhaps even more than Christianity, than any other Theocratic Political movement.

When Christian Spain expelled the Jews, it was a Muslim Caliph that welcomed them and even sent ships to transport them away from Spain. It was the Islamic world that maintained knowledge and education during the period of the Christian Dark Ages.

Even under the Islamic Caliphate in Spain, Christian Monasteries continued to thrive, and it was in a large part, those monks and nuns that returned to more northern Europe from those monasteries bring back tales of indoor plumbing and clean streets and hospitals and schools that lead to the great awakening that followed the Dark Ages.

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Thursday, 3 May 2007

Setting The Record Straight

Over at Creation Versus Evolution forum. An indepth discussion of the barbarity of early(–ish) Christianity, something a lot of people skimp over in their haste to denounce Islam.
clipped from www.evcforum.net
setting the record straight

Historically, Islam has been a religion of tolerance, while Christianity has been just the opposite, a religion of Intolerence.

As a Christian, I believe that we need to realize this failing in our Faith, and
to work towards making Christianity more tolerant. Christianity has a long
history of simply destroying other cultures and religions and in legally
mandating either conversion, expulsion or death.

Some examples:

  • when the conquistadors arrived in South America they burned all of the religious tracts they found and outlawed the practice of any religion except Christianity.
  • Jews were expelled from England in 1290 under the Edict of Expulsion. They were barred from the Isles until the mid 1600s.
  • the Crusades which were attempts to redirect internal violence towards a non-aggressive outside neighbor.
  • Faith's own post
    describes the heart of Islam to be barbarity, even though the historical facts
    do not support her assertion.

    Ground Jump Boost (OOT Speedrunning Techniques continued)

    How to perform a bomb–based ground boost. Explanation provided by Erik.
    clipped from www.youtube.com

    Ground Jump Boost

    Comments
    PyRoTHPS
    I did a ground jump, then let go of a bombchu in the air to give me a boost.
    When you have your sword out, stand infront of the bomb, then hold L+R, and press A to grab the bomb. Your guy will put his sword away instead of grabbing the omb and you won't be able to move. Wait for the bomb to blow up, let go of L+R, then do a backflip.

    Ocarina of Time Speedrunning Techniques

    SDA’s Fluffy_Kitten shows how to bomb jump (impact boost) the moat in Hyrule Castle in Ocarina of Time.
    clipped from www.youtube.com

    Hyrule Moat Skip With a Bomb

    PyRoTHPS
    It is very easy. Trick is to stand where I am, wait for it to start beeping fast, run off the ledge, then shield drop it in the air, then press B to jumpslash.

    Wednesday, 2 May 2007

    Opposing Force Speedrun

    Ahhh… I found it online! I have a high quality download of this from the Speed Demos Archive website, but this site has an embedded video of Spider–Waffle’s amazing speedrun of the expansion pack game to Half–Life. I prefer this one even to his awe–inspiring speedrun of Half–Life itself (posted elsewhere on this site)!

    The page includes Blake’s commentary on his run. Go to it and watch. Download it from SDA and support the website!
    clipped from www.archive.org

    Half-Life: Opposing Force (PC) - 0:23:09 - Blake Piepho (2005)

    Speed run of the Half-Life expansion Opposing Force on hard mode in 93 segments,
    completed on February 12 2005.
    Blake 'Spider-Waffle' Piepho

    Proud, British and … errr … Muslim?

    Interesting. A recent Gallup poll has shown that muslims in London feel far more integrated than a lot of the ‘native’ population! Done, unfortunately, on a rather small cross–section of the population, nonetheless it shows great hope — and definitely smashes a lot of the talk on muslims unwilling to integrate with Britain…

    Muslims Proud to be British

    London Muslims are more proud of being British than their non-Muslim
    counterparts, a poll revealed this week.


    The independent survey by the Gallup Organisation found that the Muslim attitude towards the Government and Britain’s institutions is far more positive than other Britons.


    Gallup interviewed 500 Muslims and 1,200 members of the wider population.


    81% of London Muslims condemn violence even if used in a noble cause.


    74% are loyal to Britain.


    69% identify very or extremely strongly with their religion.


    82% respect other religions.


    The poll showed that loyalty to Britain was greater than the general public: 74 per cent as opposed to 45 per cent.

    The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism