Aladdin's Café Closed!!!!!

One of my favorite cafe / takeout was Aladdin Café. They served middle eastern favorites like: grape leaves, falafel patties, foul, hummus, baba ghanouj, and tabbouleh salad. And of course, there's also the lamb, beef, and chicken kabobs. My favorites were their Baklava and other assorted pastries.

Arabic music was always playing and the television was always tuned to some Arabic Satelite channel.

It's like stepping into a shop somewhere in the middle east.

Amazingly, everything were priced very reasonably.

Alas, they weren't able to drum up enough business; so they had to close.

It's a sad day for Baltimore.

p.s., One of the brothers who owned Aladdin's is now working as one of the chefs at the Carlyle (500 University Parkway).

Fast Food Gourmand

Lately, I've been up to my neck in work so, I've been eating exclusively at fast food restaurants and take-outs. So, here's a list of my favorites:

• Best Hamburger Sandwich: Burger King's Angus Steak Burger
  

  Before I tried it, I was skeptical that it would really matter if it's Black Angus beef or otherwise. Boy, was I wrong. The meat does matter, even in a hamburger.
  
  

• Best Hot Dog/Sausage on a bun - Seven Eleven's Kielbasa
  

  I love kielbasa (no topping); it doesn't matter where I buy it.
  
  

• Best Corn Dog - K-mart's Corn Dog
  

  I love corn dogs (with just mustard); it doesn't matter where I buy it.
  
  

• Best French Fries (French Cut Fried Potato) - McDonald's French Fries
  

  It just tastes better than other french fries. (According to Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation", it's the oil. For decades McDonald's cooked its french fries in a mixture of about seven percent cottonseed oil and 93 percent beef tallow. The mixture gave the fries their unique flavor -- and more saturated beef fat per ounce than a McDonald's hamburger. In 1990, amid a barrage of criticism over the amount of cholesterol in its fries, McDonald's switched to pure vegetable oil. This presented the company with a challenge: how to make fries that subtly taste like beef without cooking them in beef tallow. A look at the ingredients in McDonald's french fries suggests how the problem was solved. Toward the end of the list is a seemingly innocuous yet oddly mysterious phrase: "natural flavor." See http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm)
  
  

• Best Taco Salad - Wendy's Southwest Taco Salad
  

  I was surprised that it's better than Taco Bell's Taco Salad. It has a better chili and it has the Ancho Chipotle Ranch Dressing.
  
  

• Best "Eat While Driving" Meal - KFC's Popcorn Chicken Meal w/ Fried Potato Wedges
  

  The popcorn chicken tastes just like the KFC extra crispy fried chicken; however, the entire meal can be chugged down using one hand.

Is Mixed-Race Marriage A Sin?

I came across another post, in one of the forums on MySpace, that was hard to leave alone. The initial post asked if it is a sin to be in a mixed-race marriage. All the responses were basically "No, it's not a sin. The Bible never said that it's a sin."

Is that good logic? If the Bible does not forbid it, is it ok to do it?

I am not questioning the conclusion. I agree with it. I am however questioning the logic used to reach the conclusion.

So, I was compelled to repond again to a forum post.


Here's my post:


We can ask, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Of course, Jesus didn't marry. However, we can look at His genealogy.

Jesus' genealogy includes at least two Gentiles: Rahab, a Canaanite, and Ruth, a Moabite.

Tamar the mother of Perez by Judah was also most likely not Jewish considering that Judah left his brothers to stay with a man of Adullan named Hira.

Bathsheba, mother of Solomon (former wife of Uriah the Hittite), was daughter of Eliam who was the son of Eliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite. Most likely she was a Gentile (considering that she married an Hittite).

So if Jesus' human genealogy is that of a mixed race, I think we can safely say that mixed race marriages are OK w/ God.

I must add one caveat. God does value the diversity of races. In God's Revelation to John (the book of Revelation), the picture, of the people of God on the other side of eternity, is that of a community of distinctly different races and languages joined together to form the universal chorus. In fact, Jesus stated that the end would come when the Gospel has been preached in all the nations (translated from the Greek word ethnos).

But, really! When considering marriage, should any of that be of any great consideration when making a Biblical choice. Of course not!

The most important is: (No, it's not if you love each other, that's a given.) It's: Did God call the two of you to be together to serve Him as a couple.

That may be hard to determine, so I'll frame it in a different way.

Were each of you, individually, seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness (and letting God add marriage to you) [Matthew 6:33], when God brought the two of you together?

Think of it as a triangle: God at the top of the triangle and the two of you at the other two corners. As each of you draws towards God (drawn by God), God moves the two of you together.

Too often I hear guys (believers) who are not serving God, pray for a wife (a helper) and I have to laugh. These guys are basically doing nothing and are praying for God to give them a helper to help them do... Nothing!

On paper, waiting for God to bring you and your future spouse together, may not sound romantic but it is very romantic. Imagine you doing your thing in serving God; your future spouse doing his/her own thing in serving God. Then God starts to move circumstances, people, events causing the two of you to bump into each other, to be yoked together in some challenging task, to experience triumph as you two work shoulder to shoulder, to share experiences in which you can later exchange as private jokes. Each time the two of you are brought together, the excitement in your hearts builds..... It's pretty cool!

For the Last Time, Evolution IS NOT SCIENTIFIC!!!!!

I came across a post, in one of the forums on MySpace, which insists that evolution is scientific and creationism is myth. Below is the post:


Posted: May 14, 2006 6:36 PM

The difference between evolution and Creationism is that evolution is real and Creationism is not real. Creationism is based on the Bible that says that God created the world in 6 days about 10,000 years ago. Clearly the world was not created in 6 days about 10,000 years ago so therefore the Bible is just plain wrong. If the world were merely 10,000 years old then how do you explain the dinosaurs that are millions of years old? We've discovered life fossils that date back billions of years. Even the skeletons of modern humans date back before the time of Adam and Eve.

If we were to believe the Bible, then we would have to believe the Earth was created before the stars, which is the wrong order. If the stars were created 10,000 years ago, we wouldn't be able to see starts that were more than 10,000 light years away. That's because if a star were further away than 10,000 light years, the light from that star wouldn't have got here yet. Our galaxy alone is about 100,000 light years across. If the Bible were true, we wouldn't be able to see but 1/10th the way across our own galaxy. We surely wouldn't be able to see other galaxies or galactic clusters or know that the universe is expanding.

Our modern technology has proved the Bible wrong. That means that if there is a God, he didn't write the Bible and the Bible is not his word. If the Bible were the word of God and the Bible is wrong, then God is wrong. And if God can't be wrong, then the Bible, which is wrong, can't be the word of God.

Men who lived thousands of years ago wrote the Bible. The authors had limited knowledge of the nature of the universe and wrote the Bible based on what they believed at the time. They didn't know the Earth was round and that it orbited the Sun, which is a star among billions of stars in the galaxy which is but one galaxy in billions of galaxies that have existed for billions of years. To them, the world was flat. There was up and there was down and God lived in the sky. They didn't know the world was round and there was no such thing as "up". They didn't know that the sky was a thin layer of gas that surrounds the surface of this planet. We have been to the sky and we have been above the sky and God isn't living there.

The above assertions made me fume enough to write a rebuttal. Below is my rebuttal:

To the person who wrote the initial post,

I'd like to address your initial post, scientifically, point by point.

1. Your Point:
   

   
   The difference between evolution and Creationism is that evolution is real and Creationism is not real.
   

   
   Rebuttal:
   

   
   Scientifically speaking, it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creationism. First, the theory of evolution violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics (the law of entropy) which says, disorder always goes up, i.e., energy/matter dissipates, systems breaks down. Evolution requires the opposite; it requires energy and matter to become concentrated and the systems to become more complex.
   

   
   Many people, who believe in evolution, don't understand how complex a single cell is; they simply had the faith that some how all the required chemicals come together to become the first cell.
   

   
   Let me describe for you the components of a cell:
   

   
   
   • Cell membrane/wall - a complex external membrane which can be controlled to let water in and out depending on temperature, salinity, and nutritional needs. It can also be controlled to attach itself and detach it self to/from certain shaped molecules. And it can enfold itself around an external object to "gobble" it up.
     
   
   
   • Cell nucleus - composed of a complex membrane within which the DNA resides. This membrane can be regulated to let RNA in and out. Inside, the DNA combines RNA fragments to send chemical signals (in the form of RNA combination) to the ribosome which creates proteins to regulate cell metabolism. During mitosis, both the DNA and membrane around the cell nucleus replicates while regulating the cell to divide.
     
   
   
   • Ribosome - It takes RNA combinations and produce proteins to regulate cell metabolism.
     
   
   
   • Mitochondria - It's the power station in the cell. It also has its own DNA which infers that it does a lot more than provide the cell with power conversion.
     
   
   
   • Endoplasmic Reticulum
     
   
   
   • Lysosome
     
   
   
   • Golgi Body
     
   
   
   
   

   
   Any one who actually believes that all this complexity can spontaneously appear (whether slowly or quickly) by simply stirring the primordial soup has A LOT OF FAITH in the theory of a naturalist (not a scientist since he does not apply the scientific method).
   

   
   If anything, scientific evidence points towards creationism. The Big Bang Theory, which is no longer a theory but is a scientific fact, points towards creationism. Originally there were two ways to model the Big Bang: 1) the single bang model 2) the cyclic bang, expand, collapse, and bang again model. The latter was put out by those who want to eliminate a creator from the system.
   

   
   In order for the cyclic model to work, there must be sufficient mass in the universe to generate enough gravity to start the collapsing process. So scientists were in a search for "missing" mass that can collapse the universe. Unfortunately, "missing" mass were hard to come by. In fact, as the universe continues to expand, it requires even more mass to collapse the universe. Several years ago, it was concluded that not only is the expansion of the universe not slowing down, it is actually accelerating. This discovery dashed any hope for the cyclic model of the big bang.
   

   
   This leaves only one option: the single bang model which requires an external entity to create the big bang.
   
   
   

2. Your Point:
   

   
   Creationism is based on the Bible that says that God created the world in 6 days about 10,000 years ago. Clearly the world was not created in 6 days about 10,000 years ago so therefore the Bible is just plain wrong. If the world were merely 10,000 years old then how do you explain the dinosaurs that are millions of years old? We've discovered life fossils that date back billions of years. Even the skeletons of modern humans date back before the time of Adam and Eve.
   

   
   Rebuttal:
   

   
   The dating method used to come up with millions of year is based on radioactive decay of a base element, e.g. carbon 13. It assumes that that amount of the base element in living organisms long ago is the same as the amount that is there today. By taking a reading of the amount of the base element in the found item and extrapolating the decay, it comes up with the time duration of the decay. The problem is with the initial assumption: that amount of the base element in living organisms long ago is the same as the amount that is there today. We know this assumption is not true since the amount of radiation long ago is much less than we have today since there was a breakdown of the protective cover over the earth. Radioactive decay dating is a flawed method.
   

   
   

3. Your Point:
   

   
   Our modern technology has proved the Bible wrong. That means that if there is a God, he didn't write the Bible and the Bible is not his word. If the Bible were the word of God and the Bible is wrong, then God is wrong. And if God can't be wrong, then the Bible, which is wrong, can't be the word of God.
   

   
   Rebuttal:
   

   
   I think I've given sufficient argument to dispel your assertion that "modern technology has proved the Bible wrong"
   
   

4. Your Point:
   

   
   Men who lived thousands of years ago wrote the Bible. The authors had limited knowledge of the nature of the universe and wrote the Bible based on what they believed at the time. They didn't know the Earth was round and that it orbited the Sun, which is a star among billions of stars in the galaxy which is but one galaxy in billions of galaxies that have existed for billions of years. To them, the world was flat. There was up and there was down and God lived in the sky. They didn't know the world was round and there was no such thing as "up". They didn't know that the sky was a thin layer of gas that surrounds the surface of this planet.
   

   
   Rebuttal:
   

   
   If you read the description of the creation in Genesis, you will find that the order of all the things being created is consistent with that of the current scientific finding. The fact that (as you pointed out) "the authors with limited knowledge of the nature of the universe" are able to describe current scientific finding proves that there must be a higher power feeding them the information.
   
   

5. Your Point:
   

   
   We have been to the sky and we have been above the sky and God isn't living there.
   

   
   Rebuttal:
   

   
   The Big Bang points to a creator outside of our universe (the entity who started the Big Gang). No one has been there.

I can't start my car because of stupid people

The last several months, I've been having problem starting my car. Sometimes it would start up right away; sometimes, I would have to move my gear shift around first before the car would start; somtime, it just wouldn't start. I've taken the car back to the dealership several times without getting problem resolved. Yesterday, the mechanic at the dealership had an epiphany, "It's the neutral safety switch!!!"

I asked, "The what?"

Evidently, these days, they've been putting into the car (and we pay for it) a switch which prevents you from starting the car if the car is not in neutral (or park).

Because, there are stupid people, out there, who start their car without putting their gear in neutral (or park), the auto industry started putting these idiot boxes into their cars to avoid liability suits brought by these same stupid people.

Anyway, the neural safety switch on my car is not working and now I can't start my car.

Bottom line: Stupid people made the auto industry put an idiot box (that I don't need) into my car, make me pay for that idiot box, and now that very same idiot box, that I didn't want in there first place, is preventing my car from starting.