'Buddha Boy' back in jungle

In the breadking news for Asia of the Straits Times, there is a story titled: 'Buddha Boy' back in jungle. In this story, it stated that a 18 year old young man from Nepal by the name of Bomjam is believed by followers to be a reincarnation of Buddha. His supporters claimed that he was a reincarnation of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. The reason for this claim is because: 'We have never seen him eat or drink and we believe he's a god in human form,' According to the statement of Bed Bahadur Thing, president of the Buddha Jungle Meditation Conservation and Prosperity Committee.

On the other hand, The president of the Nepal Buddhist Council said that the claims by his supporters were not credible.

'We do not believe he is Buddha. He does not have Buddha's qualities,' said Mahiswor Raj Bajracharya, president of the Nepal Buddhist Council, a centre for Buddhist study and research in Kathmandu.

'He may have achieved great heights in meditation, but that alone does not make him a Buddha. A Buddha needs life experience, a young man who has not seen the world at all cannot be a Buddha,' said Mr Bajracharya.

This is the interesting story that shown the contridition on the definition of Buddha in the Buddhism. The buddists believed that Buddha is one that has acheived enlightenment. And the Buddha has reached parinirvana which is the final nirvana, which is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice and implies a release from the bhavachakra, samsara, karma and rebirth as well as the dissolution of all worldly physical and mental aggregates or skandhas. So, if the Buddha has already acheived parinirvana, why is he still reincarnated in a human form?

Lawer = Liar (Hopefully Not All of Them)

According to the list of 10 prolific corporate fugitives in Singapore complied by He Zongying and posted in the Straits Times today in this link, out of the 10 fugitives, 6 are lawyers. They are:

- David Rasif, a 17-year legal veteran, disappeared in 2006 after allegedly stealing around S$12 million of his clients' money.

- Zulkifli Amin, a lawyer, skipped town in 2007 with $6 million of his clients' money.
Tan Cheng Yew, a prolific debater and prominent lawyer, went missing in 2003 for allegedly using $5.6 million of a client's trust fund to pay off debts chalked up at Australian casinos.

- Geoffrey Heng Guan Hong, a former SAF scholar and a high-flying lawyer, went missing in 1997 with $3.2 million collected from cheating clients in two property transactions.

- Fun Huay Yew, lawyer of 10 years' standing, went missing in 2003 after failing to return money of $635,000 held in trust.

- Lim Yee Kai, A lawyer of 10 years, went missing in 1998 after taking $413,129 of his client's money in 1997 to pay his credit-card bills, lend money to friends and pay for a trip to Malaysia.

And of course, the biggest liar among them found in the recent news is the former president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, who involved in money-laundering case of NT$1 billion and a lot other scandals.

Is this a surprise to you? Do you feel betrayed? The people that are most well trained in law are anything but lawless. The people with high talent and well educated that suppose to uphold the law and command our respect are nothing other than villains.

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, SIN is lawlessness. “(1^st John 3:4)

Repent! Time to Repent!

汶川=济

是哀悼的时刻，

也是同舟共济的时刻。

TWO COWS – Just for a Laught

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.

You give one cow to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows.

The government took them and gives you 2 cans of milk.

FASCISM

You have 2 cows.

The government took them and sells you the milk.

NAZISM

You have 2 cows.

The government took them and shoots you.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have 2 cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your cattle are proliferating and economy grows.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL

You have 2 cows.

You chop them off.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce similar amount of 4 cows' milk.

Then, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow died.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You go on strike, gather supporters, and blockade the road because you want to have 3 cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You redesign them so they can produce 20-fold of milk.

Then you create a cartoon profile of smart cow, called "Cowkemon" and sell it to the whole world.

A GERMAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You engineer them to live for more than 100 years, consume only one meal per month, and they can milk each other.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You don't know where they are.

You decide to have lunch instead.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You count them and dream how is it if you have 5 cows.

You count them again and dream how is it if you have 42 cows.

You count them again and find out that you only have 2 cows.

You stop counting and open a bottle of Vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5,000 cows.

No one is yours.

You keep them safely and charge some administration fee to the owner.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

You have 300 men to milk them.

You declare that there's no unemployment, and high value of milk production.

You arrest the journalist who reported the reality.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows

You worship them.

BRITISH CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

Both are mad cows.

IRAQ CORPORATION

Everybody thinks that you have number of cows.

You tell them that you have only one cow.

Nobody believes you, and then they start to bombard your area and invade your country.

You're still having no cow, but at least you're now a part of democracy.

NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

The cow in the left looks so attractive.

AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

The business looks promising.

You close your office and go for a beer to celebrate it.

INDONESIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

Both are stolen cows.

Then you sell them.

You put the money in an ill-defined non-budgeter account.

Then you use some of it to fund your political party campaign.

But you save the majority for your posterity.

MALAYSIAN CORPORATION

You have 2 cows.

Both you stole from Indonesia.

SINGAPORE CORPORATION

You have 2 cows

One cow with a limping left leg escaped.

The Indonesian captured it and refused to return until you send them the reminding cow.

Poor English Capability - Even the Editor of a Respected Newspaper is Not Spared

Have you spotted anything wrong in today issue of My Paper featured above?

The error is on the confusion of the words “Biannual” and “Biennial”.

In this news article, it stated that “The biannual Asian Aerospace was organized by Reed Exhibitions and …” At the end of the article, the writer stated: “I hope this venue won’t come alive just once in two years.”

We are so used to biweekly as every two weeks and bimonthly as every two months. We extrapolate that bi-annual should also mean every two years. However, this assumption is totally wrong. Biannual means twice every year! The correct word to use is BIENNIAL.

English is not my first language. I have spent most of my 3 years of Polytechnic education in the library with the company of a thick dictionary to check for words that are foreign to me. My pre-Polytechnic education is fully Chinese!

I do not expect our English journalist could make this mistake and the editor could not catch this mistake.

It is truly disappointed that our English standard is so low.

By the way, bimonthly could also mean twice a month according to Macmillan English Dictionary.