Life's Great Expectations!

1. hartalmsm: Why I use 'Allah' - a layman's perspective Wed Jan 20, 2010 6:35 am (PST) http://hartalmsm. wordpress. com/2010/ 01/20/why- i-use-allah- a-laymans- perspective/ Why I use 'Allah' - a layman's perspective January 20, 2010 By Pastor Eu Hong Seng In the current ongoing debate, some are of the opinion that Christians should just give in and forego the use of the word "Allah" so that the threats and attacks on churches will stop and Malaysia can continue to enjoy her peace and move on unhindered to developed nation status. Now, more than ever the country needs clear-minded Malaysians and not "confused" citizens, Christians included. There are ten salient facts and reasons and I would like to address these to the ordinary man in the street and lay people in the Church. (1) 1. The use of "Allah" predates Islam "Allah" is the Arabic

Source: Hello Kitty: The Funny, The Weird, And The Horrifying Thanks to the marketing skills of Japanese company Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s cute-cat character has been going strong for 35 years and has become an internationally-recognized brand. One of the most diverse and unpredictable places in the entire universe, the world of Hello Kitty encompasses a vast collection of strange products that dazzle the mind and serve as material for an extensive list of noteworthy weirdness. Since there are thousands of Hello Kitty products in just about every category imaginable, it’s difficult to find the weirdest of the weird. Furthermore, many Hello Kitty pictures floating around the Internet are actually photoshopped fakes, so it takes some time to figure out what’s real and what’s not. Still, I managed to scrape together this list of examples that appear to be legitimate products. So, hold on to your seats and get ready to be entertained, disturbed, and maybe even sexually abused

SEC badly bungled probes of Madoff scheme, agency watchdog says -- incompetence, not corruption By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer On Wednesday September 2, 2009, 9:34 pm EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pushing past years of "red flags," investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission bungled their probes of Bernard Madoff so badly that his multibillion-dollar fraud not only flourished but he used the exams to suck in new investors, an agency watchdog declared Wednesday. The report by the SEC inspector general shows that no smoking gun of corruption was found in the agency's conduct toward the disgraced financier. Instead it painted a grim picture of an agency hobbled by incompetence -- failing to pursue the most obvious leads -- that cleared the wa

Invasion of the botnets: Cyberattacks on the rise The types of cyberattacks aren't new, but the speed and number of them are on the rise By William Jackson Aug 28, 2009 For the past year, the cyber threat landscape has been dominated not by new vulnerabilities and exploits so much as by the sheer number of attacks against information technology systems and the growing professionalization of the bad guys behind them. In this report: New threats emerge from once-trusted protocols and services “The sexiness of the threat has not increased,” said one industry observer who met with a multiagency task force on intrusion. “But the exposure in terms of the number of exploits is growing exponentially.” The numbers are sobering. “Malware is at the highest point we’ve ever seen it,” said Dave Marcus, director of security research at McAfee Avert Labs. “2008 was the biggest year so far. The first half of 2009 has eclipsed all of 2008,” with 8,0

New threats emerge from once-trusted protocols and services Vulnerabilities in services such as DNS and SSL open new avenues of attack By William Jackson Aug 28, 2009 The rapid morphing and bundling of exploits for known vulnerabilities could be the biggest concern for security experts, but that doesn’t mean that new threats are not emerging. Two of the most troubling are in the Domain Name System and Secure Sockets Layer, services users have trusted for years. In this report: Invasion of the botnets: Cyberattacks on the rise A zero-day exploit emerged last month for a vulnerability in one of the most commonly used DNS servers, forcing many users to update the software that helps to direct Internet traffic. “Pretty much any BIND 9 server can be brought down with this script,” said Branko Miskov, product manager director at BlueCat Networks. “Our development team was quite surprised at how simple this was.” Also last month, researchers

Source: Uncouth Facebook postings closing doors for job candidates More employers than ever are researching job candidates on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter in order to find out more about their activities and character. And, it turns out, many candidates are doing a great job of showing their potential bosses poor communication skills, inappropriate pictures, and even how many workplace secrets they can leak. By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated August 20, 2009 3:02 PM CT Some of us had the luck of doing stupid things online before most employers knew what social networking was. (I'll admit it: in my early working days, I said some not-nice things online about some of the people I worked with.) These days, however, those looking for jobs have had many years to build up an unsavory history across the Internet, and employers now know how to do their homework. In fact, nearly half of the employers in the US now search for job candidates on socia

MISTAKE What they actually mean If a barber makes a mistake, It's a New Style If a driver makes a mistake, It is a New path If a engineer makes a mistake, It is a New Venture If parents makes a mistake, It is a New Generation If a politician makes a mistake, It is a New Law If a scientist makes a mistake, It is a New Invention If a tailor makes a mistake, It is a New Fashion If a teacher makes a mistake , It is a New Theory If our boss makes a mistake, It is a New idea If an employee makes a mistake, It is a 'Mistake' long piak! (a.k.a. banging against the wall)

10 Commonly Overlooked Auto Safety Issues by Bobbi Dempsey Wednesday, July 1, 2009 provided by As the weather gets nicer, people tend to spend more time in their cars and start to plan road trips or family getaways. You may have already done the routine springtime vehicle maintenance tasks, such as removing the snow tires. Perhaps you've even waxed the car thoroughly, replacing that grimy sludge and salt of winter with a glossy shine. However, you may not necessarily be ready to hit the road just yet: You may be overlooking important safety issues. These issues can be costly -- not to mention dangerous -- if you don't take care of them immediately. Here are our top 10 overlooked auto safety issues: Missing air bags. A new report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, finds that nearly one in five fatal accidents involves cars with missing air bags. This is something that should concern anyone who has bought a previously owned car. Don'