I’ve been asked to setup a Moodle site for work so that students and teachers can access course information, assessments, learning guides and weekly class content. While I can setup the backend of a Content Management System, I have no idea of how to get my way round a Moodle site.

Think this is going to be harder than I first thought.

I was listening to Nova (96.9) last Friday where Merrick & Rosso interviewed the now Australian of the year, Tim Flannery. Tim is a global warming activist and got quiet heated himself when talking about the way governments act irresponsibly refusing to take ownership when it comes to pollution and other environmental issues.

Towards the end of the interview Merrick said something that has played on my mind since. He said he wonders if the people who choose to ignore environmental issues will become the criminals of the future. In 20, 30, 40 years those of us who continue to act recklessly will one day be held responsible for our actions. Think Merrick might be onto something here…I wonder…could I be a criminal of the future

“update + whats been going on + why isnt any one around”

This was the subject line of an email I received recently. It was a rather long email attempting to explain why my then web hosting company had been offline, silent and un-contactable for the past 2 months. Yes two months.

Having accepted another annual hosting payment from me, and I imagine many others, the hosting company seemed to disappear from the face of the earth, well Australia anyway, with servers offline and helpdesk email and phones unattended. After two weeks of trying to speak with someone, anyone, I received an email from a third party support person who had permission to view helpdesk calls, but had no access to fix anything on the system. I was told that the owner hadn’t been heard from for at least a further two weeks and I was encouraged to check out this third part support persons own hosting company – sounded like a sales pitch. But at least he made the effort to let me know something.

So – I moved on. I called my bank and started the process of trying to redeem my money, I found another hosting company, who to date have been very good, and I began trying to restore data from old backups.

This whole situation got me thinking. One of the dangers of blogging and using a hosting company is that my data, public and private, is now sitting on a server hard drive somewhere. I have no idea whether the data is retrievable or not. I have no control over what happens to the hard drive it is stored on. What if the server is still working and sold onto another company? What if it is dismantled and sold of for parts? Some pimple faced teenager buys the hard now has my personal information!

I guess I’m not so much upset with the fact that this company went out of business – it happens. And I’m really not that upset that they took my money. What really upsets me is that they took my trust and threw it away. I trusted this company with my information and they really have not given me anything in return. One email of explanation in over three months. One email and then more silence.

So who is this hosting company that broke my trust, yes I am going to tell you – only because a warning needs to go out to other would-be customers, a warning that this company may not be a wise and trustworthy choice.
The infamous company – Host Web Live (Perth, Australia) - http://www.hostweblive.com.au/

Finally! The site is back up again….so what happened?
In short – LOTS.
The last post I made to this blog was back in October 2006. One day I may share some of the reasons why I stopped blogging at that time – but not yet. For those who are observant you will have noticed that the last blog entry is dated august 10th 2006. This is because the web hosting company that I was dealing with has had lots of problems over the past year (more on that later) and managed to loose mine and I assume a lot of other people’s data from their Perth server(s). So August to October is gone and sadly that contained the blogs that covered our mission’s trip to Tonga. I managed to get the other blogs when I found a backup I had done in august. The lesson here is make sure you always backup on a regular basis – something I always stress to my students –but obviously don’t put into practice.

Some people will try and tell you that the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation is incompatible with mainstream Christian theology.� Well, I say those people are defeatists and are just not trying hard enough.� Shoehorning a particular philosophy into your own chosen belief system is not as hard as it seems and indeed gets easier the more you do it.� I’ll show you how.

Shortly after I was born again – which was twelve years after I was born the first time – my parents took me to a certain Dr Bombay, who was renowned in the field of retrieving repressed memories.� He was recommended to my parents by family friends Darren and Samantha, who I’m fairly certain were repressed memories themselves.� My parents were disgusted by my new-found evangelical bent and decided that the best way to excise it was with a healthy dose of new age mumbo-jumbo, which is a little-known offshoot of new age philosophy.� I distinctly remember Dr Bombay hovering over me while I lay on a leather couch and showing me some inkblot pictures which I told him were very good but really not my style (I was heavily influenced by neo-deconstructivism and Dada at the time).� The next thing I remember I was remembering some memories which I don’t recall remembering before.� I don’t know exactly what he did or how he did it, but pretty soon a whole new strange and scary world opened up to me and I was recalling my past lives in lurid detail.� What I saw that day in Dr Bombay’s office shocked and unsettled me, and it wasn’t all to do with the Rubens on his wall.� The session ended with the good doctor capping my molars and giving me a sample tube of Mr Men toothpaste.� Then, after booking my six-monthly checkup, he snapped his fingers. � I left the trance-like state that I was in (Queensland), returned home and was left to ponder my new-found enlightenment and fillings.� �

I have to admit, though, that my repressed memory is not what it once was and I’m a bit vague on the details of my first life, although I have the indelible� impression that I was some kind of primordial slug.� That my ex-girlfriend Tania uses the same description of me is, I’m hoping, just a coincidence.� I am quite certain, however, that my next few transmutations were as insects of one sort or another.� I distinctly remember being a snail and sitting on a rhododendron leaf having a coffee with Bernard the aphid when suddenly he was gone, eaten whole by a magpie.� I barely had time to mourn before I too was dead, killed in a cruel twist of irony by the salt of my own tears.� �

I then went through a painful period of animal incarnations.� I say painful because animals have this nasty habit of tearing each other to bits (yes, humans do this too, but at least we’re civilized enough to do it with high-tech weaponry) and until you battle your way through many different lives and struggle your way to the top of the food chain, living your life as quarry is really not much fun at all. Once, as a Thomson’s gazelle, I didn’t even have the chance to squirm my way out of my birth sack before I was greedily consumed by a hyena with questionable scruples.� His friends simply watched and laughed, which is what hyenas do, I guess, but that knowledge only faintly diminished the humiliation.� I can only hope he choked on my antlers, although I can’t remember if he ate my head or not, it was a long time ago.� I’ll check my journal.� �

When I finally took on human form (thank Ganesh) I spent quite a few millennia as a hunter-gatherer, and these were undoubtedly the most peaceful and satisfying years of my lives.� In fact, if I could go back there right now, I would.� But I would take underwear, probably.� And my cappuccino maker.� And my Powerbook.� Okay, it sucked.� But at the time I thought it was wonderful and I learned a lot about outback survival techniques.� For instance, I learned how to throw a spear at a log with a crude target painted on it whilst riding a jetski down a river, towing my semi-naked fellow tribe members on a fluorescent pink banana.� Or was that last week’s Survivor episode?� Wait, I remember now.� It was around twenty-five thousand years ago and our tribal homeland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia was plentiful in bush tucker.� Maybe even a little too plentiful.� I was the only person in the history of our tribe to be referred to a medicine-man for liposuction.� Those honey-pot ants were just too more-ish.� Even now, if I see a helpless invertebrate scurrying along the ground I can’t help but pick it up and suck out its innards.� This never fails to amuse the other parents at soccer on Saturday mornings.� Anyway, most of my lives in this region somehow seemed to end in much the same fashion; mistaking the Southern red-tipped scorpion, which is safe to eat and quite delectable, for the Northern red-tipped scorpion, the eating of which invariably causes all your internal organs (and external) to rupture spectacularly.� �

One particular life of note was that of Alexander the Great.� It wasn’t mine, but I’ve heard that it had some interesting high points.�

My 137^th life was the closest I ever got to actually being a famous� figure in history.� I was the man who sold the talking donkey to the prophet Balaam in Numbers chapter 22.� He offered me ten shekels but I wouldn’t budge and demanded fifteen, although I did offer to throw in a pile of fresh goat manure to sweeten the deal. � He then pointed to an indeterminate spot on the horizon and said, ‘Look, a rock in the shape of Mephibosheth’.� I stupidly turned to look, repeatedly asking “Where?” for ten minutes.� When I eventually turned around he said to just forget about the damn rock and would I accept twelve shekels?� I said yeah, okay.�

I also briefly dated Cleopatra, which sounds impressive, but really isn’t.� On our first (and last) dinner date she mispronounced Hatshetsup, which made me laugh so hard I spat taco sauce all over her face.� She immediately summoned the waiter and requested my decapitation and the cheque.

Of course, many of my lives have ended tragically, at least for� me.� A particularly gruesome fate befell me in my 259^th life in the east end of London in 1888.� It was the evening of Sunday, September 30, and a thick, pea-soup fog had rolled into Whitechapel as I alighted from the omnibus and strode through the eery streets towards my tenement on Goulston Street.� Suddenly I heard a piercing shriek emanating from a nearby alleyway.� Running into the narrow lane, I saw through the mist the vague silhouettes of two persons embroiled in a mortal struggle.� As I drew nearer, it became apparent that the assailant’s victim was a woman and was in considerable distress.� I acted swiftly.� Tapping my ebony-tipped cane with some force upon the brigand’s shoulder, I enquired as to whether he could see fit to cease his assault forthwith and provide me a light for my Hoyo de Monterrey Short Panatella cigar.� Not only did the rapscallion refuse my request, but he then proceeded to slash my face to ribbons with a scalpel.� The temerity!� Of course, with 20/20 hindsight, the entrails in his left hand should’ve alerted me to his identity as Jack the Ripper, although in my defence I thought at the time that he was simply a connoisseur of Scottish cuisine.� I’ve since been informed there is no such thing.� �

All of which brings me to my present life, which no doubt will end the same way as all my others have – in an ignoble demise.� This is not something which exactly fills me with anticipation, in fact the constant spectre of my own death and inevitable rebirth in unknown circumstances is becoming increasingly tiring and I decided after my 63 years of hard labour in the mud mines of seventeenth century Turkmenistan that I would endeavour to find a way to break the cycle of reincarnation.� That’s where my newfound Christian faith comes in.� My theory is that all people live multiple lives, one after the other until they find God, who is the ultimate purpose of existence and the key to ending the cycle.� Of course, many will recognize this as basic Christian doctrine, except cunningly twisted to suit my own agenda.� On the other hand, I could be completely wrong, the cycle will continue and I will be born into my next life as a podiatrist in Guatemala.� I hope not, because when I was nine my cousin Greg showed me his ingrown toenail and I vomited copiously.�

If I do turn out to be wrong, though, at least now I shouldn’t be too far off my zenith of enlightenment.� I have a blog.� �

�

Phil over at Signposts has made some interesting comments about the ongoing Israeli/ Lebanon conflict. In referring to the article “The new war in the Middle East” by Jim Rice (editor of sojourners), Phil shares how he finds the whole thing too hard and is paralyzed by the complexity of the beast.

The article and Phil’s comments are definitely worth a read (free article registration). While the essential message is one of peace and the Christians role peacemaker, I really like Jim’s practical application at the end of the article.

What can be done?

1. Be consistent in denouncing the violence of both sides - especially when it is deliberately aimed at civilians (or targets where great civilian “collateral damage” will be the result).
2. Pray for the emergence of new political leadership on both sides - both of which seem bereft of creative, courageous, moral, or even pragmatic leadership.
3. Challenge any religious voices that seem utterly one-sided, completely neglecting the suffering and legitimate grievances of both sides.
4. Pray for new ways for Christians and our churches to join our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters in finding real and practical solutions for a just peace in the Middle East where two states can live with security and democracy.
5. And pray for better solutions than endless war to solve the real threats of terrorism in our world, because if we fail, all of our children will be at risk.

In the interest of country security, the Indian government has issued a ban on 17 websites and blogs that (according to them) preach messages of religious hatred.