Pretties!

Received three stunning pieces of hand-made jewellery from alryssa. The scanned photos don't do them a lick of justice. I highly commend her work to one and all.

Rudeness and Religion

I really ought to be eating breakfast and reading another issue of Excalibur, but instead, some more ruminations on Mr Prager's article.

A little rummaging online produced a list of OT polygamists. For some reason Mr Prager omits this ancient custom from his essay. The Mesopotamians also practised polygamy; laws regarding this are laid out in the Code of Hammurabi and seem roughly similar to those of the Hebrews - for example, the additional wives had lesser status than the first.

Found the laws regarding premarital sex in Deuteronomy 22. Women were executed if found not to be virgins on their wedding night. A man who had sex with an unbetrothed woman was required to marry her. As elsaf pointed out in her response to my earlier posting, these are property regulations, and so possibly not the very best model for modern times. The Code of Hammurabi contains similar laws, which doesn't support Prager's contention that the Hebrews invented sex-only-within-marriage.

Ebayer Beware

Just got stung on Ebay - the five-CD set I bought turns out to be a bunch of pirated MP3s. The seller's offered a refund; I'm twisting his or her arm to refund the return postage too (actually, I'm not sure that I *should* be returning what are essentially stolen goods), I've told Ebay and I've emailed the seller's local police (a long shot but worth a try - the same seller has dozens of pirate CDs up on Ebay). Be suspicious of compilation CDs which aren't accompanied by details such as a photo - I should've been.

(no subject)

Having lots of fun with my (increasingly rude) Ebay fraudster. I told him to send me $6, the postage he charged me, because I refuse to pay the postage to return his pirate CDs. He told me he'd only pay me what the postage cost him - just $1. Oh, what a giveaway. (Now he's revealed that his "postage" costs include the cost of the CDs!)

I'm never this assertive normally. Normally I'm the sort of Anglo who would say "I'm terribly sorry, but you seem to have stabbed me." It must be the drugs. I think it actually helps that such piddling amounts of money are involved - I don't really care if I get the refund, I just want to make trouble for this fraudster. (Partly, that's because I'm annoyed at myself - I ought to have spotted that the CD was a pirate. I've avoided numerous such dodgy purchases. Really, Ebay needs to clean up their Music category.)

(no subject)

Sent off copies of the guy's emails to Ebay. Let's see if they handle the matter better than some they've handled in the past...

On the whole my experience of Ebay has been very positive, both as a seller and buyer, and they can't be blamed for an individual fraudster - although they *had* already received one complaint about him. It was only when I've tried to deal with Ebay's helpdesk types that I ran into a brick wall of poor service. So (as I'm sure you're all fascinated) I'll keep you posted on what eventuates.

Australian Democrats new advert

The Lie Detectors (Flash animation)
Footnote for foreigners: the Australian Democrats are a progressive party, traditionally most effective in the Senate. I joined just before the last federal election; another is coming up this year. The Dems have been fighting for human rights against a hostile and dishonest government for years, which was why I signed up.

In other political news, I saw the latest photo from Iraq, with the thumbs-up and smile. I can't print my response here as I try to only curse in friends-locked postings, but I would like to make this statement: flipping Jiminy flipping Cricket on a flipping bicycle.

The Dems were against the war in Iraq. The government went ahead without any debate or vote in Parliament, so we were denied any say in the matter - as were the Australian people.

The Death of Art

Finally sold my first New Adventure in the second-hand bookshop. Yay! A tip of the hat to Simon Bucher-Jones, whose The Death of Art went to a good home this evening. :-)

Genesis 16

What with all the work and doctors I haven't had a chance to get back to the action-packed tale of Genesis, starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom and a cast of thousands, and Jerry Mathers as the serpent*. But anyway, let's get back to Genesis 16. (btw, if you want the main page of the ETC's Bibles, go here. The link to "Table of Contents" just brings you back here.)

As always, here are my scribbled notes to myself. The more I read, the more I realise the plummeting depths of my ignorance, the more fascinated I become.

- Oh look, the handmaid's tale. (Given the stuff I was talking about earlier, Hagar's is probably not an isolated example.) It's a ripping story, though, a bit Dick Whittington.

- A baby names page translates Ishmael as "God that hears". (I think "El" is more accurately translated as "Lord", though.)

More in the next exciting episode!

* Rupert Booth as the serpent. "Well, hellooooo."