If an idea, opinion or belief, regardless if it is morally wrong or untrue, is proclaimed long enough, it will eventually be believed by the masses as truth and fact.

Take pre-WW2 Germany for example. An upright nation, became morally and ethically corrupt solely by the clever use of Hitler’s propaganda machine. Point taken.

Back to Israel. I am naive enough to believe that most people who condemn Israel’s treatment of the Gaza/West Bank situation aren’t Jew hating fascists… Hopefully they are simply misinformed.  Victims themselves of believing the lie that has been retold for decades.

So, for all those that do not wish to be ignorant of the facts, nor guilty of sounding silly by reinforcing historical error… please take 6 minutes to educate yourself.  Peace.

Inception is one of the best movies I’ve seen.  Every aspect of the film is near-perfect, especially the ultra-loud and dramatic instrumental theme repeated throughout the film.

The theme was like nothing I’d ever heard before, but was somehow hauntingly familiar.  Like somewhere deep in my sub-conscious I knew it had meaning, but just couldn’t remember what.

In the movie, whenever Leonardo and his gang need to wake up, the song “Non, je ne regrette nien” by Edith Piaf is played by their team member in the real world…  In the person’s dream, they recognise the tune, and it triggers their waking.

What I bet you never realised is that the tune that triggers the wake up is being played throughout the entire movie constantly!

Christopher Nolan (the director) is messing with our subconscious the whole time.

Inception indeed… and extremely cool.

Watch the clip below and all shall become clear.

Out of all wild predators who attack humans for food, the Saltwater and Nile Crocodiles are the most prolific and dangerous. Each year, hundreds of deadly attacks occur, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia. Some sources suggest that up to 2000 people are killed by the monsters each year. That’s about 5 people each day.

According to Wikipedia, the largest recorded crocodile is a giant saltwater crocodile measured at 8.6 metres and 1,352 kilograms shot in Queensland Australia in 1957. The largest living crocodile in captivity is a 7.1 metres long, in Orissa, India. It lives in Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary and in June 2006, was entered in the Guinness Book of World Records.

It gets a lot worse.

A crocodile exists today that is at least 6.1 metres long. It has been responsible for 300 human deaths, and has allegedly eaten an entire adult hippopotamus. Nicknamed ‘Gustav’, it lives along the Ruzizi river in Africa. The most recent sighting was in April 2007.

In November 2010 a Queensland pastor photographed the tracks of a crocodile ‘two metres across its girth’, which experts estimate were made by a croc over 8 metres long.  The tracks were located in Normanton, the same area where the 8.6 metre monster was shot in 1957.   Numerous croc sightings  are now surfacing (heh) and they are all saying it’s about that size (8 metres), if not bigger… ‘

Yes indeed. Giant, man-eating, stuff-of-nightmares, monsters are very much alive and well on planet earth.

Other fun facts I bet you didn’t know:

• Crocodiles are adept at learning and memorizing routines, such as the location of nearby campers or the routes of travellers.
• Crocodiles can slow their metabolism to such an extent that a tree with an intruder hiding in its branches may be guarded continuously for several weeks, without breaks for food.
• There is a sensitive flap in a crocodile’s throat, known as the ‘glottis’ which they use for breathing. As a result, forcing the arm into the throat may encourage release, although this may instead lead to the arm being severed.

I will never forget the experience, reminisce it often, and through it all, have gained a depth and understanding in my Christian faith that I doubt I would have otherwise.

If you are a follower of Jesus, are aged between 18 – 40, and have ever had a prompting to visit Israel, I could not speak more highly of the Engage Israel tour.  ’Tour’ doesn’t do it justice…  It is 2 weeks of being fully immersed in the culture, the people, places, the history – being a blessing to the people, and doing things no ordinary tourist would do.  It is definitely no old-folks tour!

Click here to read Kristy’s account of our trip.

Click here to read the PDF study I wrote as a result of being in Israel.

Click here to visit Engage Israel’s website.

It is no secret that I have a border-line obsession when it comes to secret WW2 tunnels, so you can imagine my elation when I was told about the article.

Apparently, WW2 researchers recently uncovered Defense Dept. papers which confirmed the existence of the long-rumored  tunnel under Whangarei’s extremely narrow and shallow harbour entrance.  The top-secret tunnel was  constructed to transport troops and equipment under the harbour in case of an invasion by Japanese forces.

“Obviously nobody had been down there for more than 60 years, as it was kept pretty hush-hush at the time and only a handful of people in Defence knew about it and were sworn to secrecy,” The researcher said.

When I read the article, and re-read it a few things came to mind (apart from obvious envisaging myself with bull-whip in hand and fedora on head spending my holiday in search of the said tunnel that is)…

• There are some defense fortifications in the area of the said tunnel entrance, so the story had some (albeit minute) credence.
• It sounded just too good to be true.
• Did technology exist in WW2 to excavate tunnels under bodies of water?
• How could a wartime feat of this size be kept secret and undiscovered for so long?
• The “big enough for a 4 lane road and cycle track” comment sound a bit too fishy.
• Friday April 1st.

Ah, yes… the article appeared on Friday, April first.

I then did two things in quick succession (although it being nearly midnight)… Firstly, I emailed the journalist with the following very brief 9-word email:

“This has got to be an April Fool’s stunt”

Secondly, I contacted a good (and like-minded) friend of mine who lived in close proximity to tunnel in question and told them to go looking (just in case ;-) .

I received a reply from the journalist today.

His reply verbatim:

“Look at the first lettter of each paragraph and translate the Maori researcher’s name to English and all will be revealed…”

Click here to read the article online.

Very very clever (and cruel).  I must admit… I desperately wanted this to be true.  Alas.  It just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the media.

Judging by the number of Facebook links to the story, it is creating quite a stir.  I wonder how many people have gone in search of the tunnel entrance already?  I wonder if stories like this are the stuff that urban legends are made of?

Oh well, at least the Albert Park tunnels aren’t imagined.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the following ads aren’t necessarily those of my own ;-)

Click the ads to enlarge.

God’s green earth has definitely had it’s fair share of disasters lately.  Naturally, disasters of this magnitude (especially when it’s close to home) conjures up a mixture of emotions, responses and opinions – the following are a few that have been publicly expressed by people of various religious beliefs:

“This is God’s judgement because of our sins.”

“This is not God’s judgement because He loves us.”

“This is God’s warning because He loves us.

“I am terrified, what if God sends more disasters?”

“How could God let this happen?”

The purpose of the paper (attached) is to provide some biblical grounding so we can understand God’s heart when such questions are asked, and so we can give hope, encouragement and intelligent answers to those who desperately need it during times of shaking.

Click here to view the PDF study.

Excerpt below:

There seems to be an increasing wave of prophetic declarations spoken these days about God’s judgement coming upon Nations. I don’t necessarily have an issue with the prophecies per-say but I do struggle with many of the doom-prophesiers. Let me explain. It is extremely easy to grieve at the sin in the world today, and for that grief to evolve into frustration and eventually into anger towards those that are doing the sinning (trust me, I’ve been guilty of this myself). Many prophecies are then given out of an attitude of anger and not compassion – which sends the wrong message completely, and strengthens the thinking that God is so vindictive He’s looking for any excuse to wipe us out.

But what if bigger spiders existed? Real giant spiders, that weren’t from a cheesy B-movie, a freaky nightmare, or a Tolkien novel? What If I was to inform you that there is was substantial evidence of an eight legged freak which has, not a 14 inch leg-span, but a 5-foot leg-span?

Introducing J’ba FoFi (ch-bah foo fee) the Congolese Giant Spider.

“R.K. Lloyd and his wife were motoring in the Belgium Congo in 1938 when they saw a large object crossing the trail in front of them. At first, they thought it was a cat or monkey, but they soon realized it was a spider with legs [spanning] nearly 3 feet [across].” [1]

The following, from famous naturalist, William J. Gibbons:

“On this third expedition to Equatorial Africa, I took the opportunity to inquire if the pygmies knew of such a creature [giant spider], and indeed they did! They speak of the Jba Fofi, which is a “giant” or “great spider.” They described a spider that is generally brown in color with a purple abdomen. They grow to quite an enormous size with a leg span of at least five feet…”

“On questioning our group of six Baka guides, they have all seen these spiders at one time or another and state that they are quite capable of killing a human being. According to the Baka (and the Bantu hunters who have encountered them) the giant spiders were once surprisingly common and would often construct their lairs very close to human villages. They have become quite rare now thanks mainly to the deforestation of Central Africa, but my guess would be that they are still to be found in numbers in the vast and still untouched forests of the former [Belgian Congo or Zaire] where the Lloyds encountered one in 1938.” [2]

I have always consoled myself with the knowledge that insects/spiders could not be larger than they are, because if they were, they couldn’t carry the weight of their own exoskeletons. Then I remembered seeing this image of the Coconut Crab, which can weigh 30 pounds and grow to 3 feet… Nature sometimes doesn’t follow the rules.

So, in conclusion, does the Congolese Giant Spider really exist? That remains to be seen, but I really hope it does. It would definitely rewrite the natural history books – and we would have to face the reality that our most frightening nightmare would no longer be restricted to our dreams.

[1] “Mysterious Creatures – A Guide to Cryptozoology,” George M. Eberhart, Giant spider, p. 204.

[2] “The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology”

Photo: “Arachnid” (2001)

Media advertisements are a window into our social worldview.  They portray the perceived cultural norm, what we think is important and what makes us happy.

Interestingly, our perceived cultural norm, what we think is important, and what makes us happy changes dramatically from decade to decade.

I demonstrated how fickle we are when it comes to physical appearance preference in the post: Mr. X and the perfect body, but I stumbled upon a retro magazine ad which, once again demonstrates how insane we really are.

The “Skinny girls don’t have oomph…” ad appeared in a 1954 issue of Battle Comic (apparently, girls were into tanks back then).

An intriguing entomological experiment shows that a male butterfly will ignore a living female butterfly of his own species in favour of a painted cardboard one, if the cardboard one is big. If the cardboard one is bigger than he is, bigger than any female butterfly ever could be. He jumps the pieces of cardboard. Nearby, the real, living female butterfly opens and closes her wings in vain.

We are living in days where viewing pornography is regarded as a normal, socially acceptable activity, and is a part of many peoples’ everyday lives. It is a pandemic that has spread across western civilization, fatally weakening our society. We are in deep trouble, and unless something is done about it, our society will eventually destroy itself (history shows that a society which normalises and embraces sexual depravity almost always collapses).

This paper is an attempt to provide accurate insight to the dangers and consequences of pornography, and most impotently, provide hope and help to those who desperately need it.

Click here to view the PDF study.