Just some random thoughts I had when I woke up, as I was getting ready for school, and during the subway ride over…

1. Steven Page is leaving the Bare Naked Ladies. That makes me sad.
2. I really really really want to go to a Sophie Milman concert.
3. I finally made a new video lesson for the Psalm 150 Project, except I realized theres a really big mistake in it, so I have to fix that…
4. I decided I want lots of kids… maybe like 4 or 5. My mom’d like it… ahahaha.
5. I really miss watching Chuck.
6. I’m sick of school, and I’m getting lazy as a result..
7. I’m so glad I found my cool mouse. I thought I lost it after I came home from the Philippines. Then I found it a week ago in a bag that I hadn’t opened since May last year! hahaha.
8. I gotta start applying for jobs for the summer. I was hoping I would get the summer internship at my church (I’m gonna be the intern starting in August though), but the guy from last year wants to do it. Theres a chance they might get funding to hire me as an assistant. But honestly, I’m really sick of working camps anyway.
9. I have a paper to finish. Ahhh.
10. But after that paper I only have like 6 more things to do for school…

The Ontario arm of CUPE aparently voted to “boycott Israel” today. Instead of ranting, I’m gonna make a nice ordered list of why I think this is idiotic.

1. CUPE is a Canadian national organization that has no place in international affairs.
2. The fact that it even has time to consider international issues means that it is trying to find ways to maintain relevancy in a day when unions in general are no longer needed.
3. A crisis remains in York University after its CUPE local of Contract faculty and TAs striked for 11 weeks. CUPE should have had that issue at the forefront of its concerns then, and it should remain so now.
4. Sid Ryan is an idiot and an anti-semite.
5. Their issue with Israel is its supposed apartheid agains Palestine. Yet, much less controversial (read, widely accepted) issues remain unnoticed, such as oh.. well how about Chinese human rights violations as an example.

But most of all… Sid Ryan is an idiot. Wait I said that already. Eh. Can’t say it enough. Sid Ryan is an idiot…

I just recently watched a documentary called “Right America”. It basically involved Christine Pelosi (daughter of Nancy Pelosi) following John McCain’s campaign and talking to some of his supporters.

Obviously I don’t accept everything in the movie point blank. Her mother is after all the democrat Speaker of the House of Prepresenatives. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that biased or not, what she presented really was still a representation in some way of the people who supported John McCain in the last American election. And if so. Then I feel really sorry for him.

The night before the election, I called it for McCain, and obviously as people know, I was wrong. Now I know why: I was wrong because I was completely out of touch with Americans – I am Canadian afterall – and now I know I can see this completely.

I really enjoyed the documentary. I laughed out loud more than once. But as I said, the overall feeling I got really is just that McCain got the crappy end of the stick if these were what his supporters were like. Narrowminded, fundamentalist people. It’s funny some of the times. It’s sickening, sometimes. But mostly it was just sad.

Take one very well meaning, pleasant looking young man. He is entering in to a McCain rally wearing a while T-Shirt with a bunch of slogans written on it. But none of them as prominent as the words “No Socilism” on his back. No I didn’t mis-spell it. He did. And when Christine told him, he replies “Oh really? Do you have a marker?” Oh man I almost fell of my seat laughing. But when the exchange continued I actually did… Christine then asked him, do you even know what socialism is? To which he responded “somewher between facism and…” I think he was thinking of the word communism. Anyway. Communism and Facism are two opposite ends of the political spectrum. Communism is what you get when you hold extremely liberal political views, and Facism when you hold extremely conservative political views.

Anyway, that was a funny part. But a very sad part that immediately came after, which was the section when she interviewed a bunch of people who promptly compared Obama to Hitler (again, opposite politcs here… Obama is Liberal, Hitler is Conservative)…

There was another section on racism. Which was obviously mostly disturbing except for one funny guy who really redeemed the section for me, albeit his extremely backwards view. Well first of all, he admitted that his view was backwards – he says when his daughter calls him on it, he replies that his views aren’t backward, but everyone elses’ is just too far forward. Anyway, to him, not only should a black man be president, but neither should women vote. To which Christine responded, “Well you’re really in trouble then, either a black man’s going to be president or a woman’s going to be vice president”. He replied, “I know! We’re screwed” then laughed it off. That was a pretty great moment for me. Gotta hate the man for his views, but at least he’s honest and open about them… And can laugh at himself (which actually makes me think that he’s alot more progressive than he’s making himself out to be).

One finally funny moment in the film was the section where people were comparing Obama with Osama bin Laden. After interviewing a bunch of people who made this comparison, she then proceeds to interview this guy who is selling a bunch of buttons, one of which said “The difference between Osama and Obama is just a little BS”. She asked him if he really believed that, and he said that he actually does not. She asked him, then, why he was selling these buttons, to which he responded “Cause I’m a capitalist entrepreneur and I’m giving people what they want!” Ahahahaha, classic.

Anyway. What made me the most sad about the film was the way some of these people used their religion to argue against Obama. Some said that he was the anti-christ. In fact one of the people she interviewed that said this was a very plain, normal looking guy in a suit who went on to explain that the first thing he thought of when he heard Obama had a chance of becoming president was “666″. I couldn’t believe the ignorance of these people!

First of all, they misinterpret what the 666 business is all about anyway. The Bible prophesies that the anti-christ’s name will be equal to 666. What this means is that their Hebrew or Greek name (can’t be sure) will add up to 666 (because each Hebrew and Greek character has a number associated to it). Well I transliterated Obama’s name into Greek, and I got something like 807. I can’t do it in Hebrew cause I don’t know Hebrew yet… but, yeah it’s just dumb.

Ok enough of that. I liked the movie, but mostly because I could quite clearly see through the bias. I found al ot of things funny (even though some things I found funny, my mom said was “rude”). But over all.. I just felt sad, and sorry of these were the kinds of people that were supporting John McCain. No wonder why he lost… Hey, I consider my self conservative to the core. Fiscally. Socially. Yeah, even Theologically, I believe (though some might say that I’m actually very liberal theologically). But there is something very different between conservatism, and this kind of crazy.

Another “church” has fallen under the scrutiny of the media. Recall that I had various posts about the Prayer Palace a few years ago. Now it’s a church called “Dominion Christian Centre of Canada”. I was very saddened to read what the Star had to say about them, and then of course to verify the information for myself (the CRA website lists their charity status as “revoked”)

The regulator found that money contributed by donors and destined for good works was instead paid to fund “numerous personal trips, payments for privately used vehicles, gym memberships, food, lodging and other unsubstantiated payments.”

Among the expenses that raised eyebrows, auditors say, were numerous purchases at “expensive fashion outlets such as Gucci and Dolce Gabbana.”

Since I like writing emails so much, here’s what I sent to their church email, and to the “info” mail of the pastors, Peggy and Paul Rigo:

Once again, the work of the Lord has been hampered by those who proclaim to be His servants but indeed are only serving themselves. Shame on you. It’s difficult enough as it is to engage with this lost world about Jesus Christ, and here you are on the newspaper with shifty financial problems.

Nonetheless I rejoice in Paul’s words “Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.”

It’s found in Philippians 1:15-18, if you’ve forgotten where it is.

Yes that’s right. 6 hours from now, and I shall be free for Reading Week… Kind of. Because unlike most other students, I plan to actually do some reading. But nonetheless… The stresses of school shall be eased for a little while. I’m gonna catch up on some gaming in addition to that school work. Horah!

Spring is in the air, even though it’s not gonna last too long. It’s supposed to snow again tonight.. But ahh well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s enough hope for us Torontonians to get us through the last.. 4 weeks or so of winter. Pretty soon I’ll be back in my shorts.. Yehyah.

Random thought: I need to buy new shoes… Hmph, that’ll be nice.

Responding to my aunt’s post on multiply regarding murders in the Philippines, I decided to go look up the “Corruption Index” of the Philippines. I knew I had read about it a few years ago while doing some research in to Philippine politics. But I never actually went to see.

Anyway, my search lead me to Transparency International, which is a Intenternational Non-Governmental Organization that measures in various countries. I have to say… I had to scroll down quite a bit to find the Philippines. In their 2007 Annual Report, the Philippiness was:

• Scored a 2.5 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).
• Ranks 131, where Denmark, Finland, and New Zeland is top ranked with scores of 9.4, Singapore and Sweden are tied at 4th, Iceland, at 6th, Netherlands and Switzerland at 7, and Canada and Norway at 9th round out the top 10 least corrupt countries in the world.
• Shares this rank (131) with countries like… Iran, Libya, Nepal, Yemen.
• Ranks lower than Zambia, Vietnam and Niger (123), Uganda and Rwanda (111), Mongolia and Lebanon (99), Panama and Sri Lanka (94) and Thailand and Bosnia (84).
• But no worries it does beat … Myanmar and Somalia (last palce… 179), Iraq (178), Sudan (172), and Sierra Leone (150).

I’m speachless. Do you realize that the Philippines ranks lower than 2 countries where there have been well documented cases of Genocides in the past 20 years (Rwanda and Bosnia)? … I don’t know what else to say… Shame.