Category My2centsWorth

My reviews and opinions on movies, food and anything that is worth recommending and sharing around for others to know. It’s just my two cents worth, nothing much.

Jesus Christ In The Marketplace

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Below is a very encouraging article that was featured in TODAY two weeks ago:

* Click over image for enlarged version

CEO Jesus

His (South Korea’s President-elect Lee Myung Bak) bold proclaimation reaffirms the relevance of Christianity in operating in our global marketplace!

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:14-16

I say that our jobs are not provided merely to earn a living.

Our God-given vocations are meant to be an extension of Jesus and His Church in the marketplace to reach out- influence and win people over with His love and truth- in a lost, cold and dark world!

9 Remarkable Stats on Google

andrewong2024 7 Comments

Google

Read some of these remarkable stats on Google compiled by Jeff Jarvis:

  1. Google is the “fastest growing company in the history of the world.” – Times of London, 1/29/06
  2. Google controls 65.1% of all searches in the U.S. at the end of 2007 and 86% of all searches in the UK, according to measurement company Hitwise
  3. Google was searched 4.4 billion times in the U.S. alone in October, 2007 (three times Yahoo), says Nielsen. Average searches per searcher: 40.7
  4. Google’s sites had 112 million U.S. visitors in November, 2007, says Nielsen
  5. Google’s traffic was up 22.4% in 2007 over 2006, according to Comscore
  6. Google earned $15 billion revenue and $6.4 billion profit in 2007, a profit margin of 26.9%. Its revenue was up 57% in the last quarter of 2007 over 2006, says Yahoo Finance. As of late 2007, its stock was up 53% in a year. The company has a market capitalization of $207.6 billion
  7. Google controls 79% of the pay-per-click ad market, according to RimmKaufman. It controls 40% of all online advertising, according to web site HipMojo
  8. Google employed almost 16,000 people at the end of 2007, a 50% increase over the year before
  9. Google became the No. 1 brand in the world in 2007, according to Millward Brown Brandz Top 100

The battle of the books: The Bible v the Koran

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Dec 19th 2007 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

The business of marketing the Bible and the Koran says a lot about the state of modern Christianity and Islam

CHRISTIANS and Muslims have one striking thing in common: they are both “people of the book”. And they both have an obligation to spread the Word—to get those Holy Books into the hands and hearts of as many people as they can. (The Jews, the third people of the book, do not feel quite the same obligation.)

Spreading the Word is hard. The Bible is almost 800,000 words long and littered with tedious passages about begetting. The Koran is a mere four-fifths of the length of the New Testament; but some Westerners find it an even more difficult read. Edward Gibbon complained about its “endless incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept”. Thomas Carlyle said that it was “as toilsome reading as I ever undertook; a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite”.

Yet over 100m copies of the Bible are sold or given away every year. Annual Bible sales in America are worth between $425m and $650m; Gideon’s International gives away a Bible every second. The Bible is available all or in part in 2,426 languages, covering 95% of the world’s population.

Read the full article here>>>

Christianity’s Forgotten Impact

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December 15, 2007
The Straits Times

By Roland Chia

The CrossIN RECENT years, there has been a spate of anti-religion literature authored by atheists who are either crusading for religion to be privatised or abolished.

The titles of their books openly declare their basic agendas: The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Christopher Hitchens), The End Of Faith (Sam Harris) and Breaking The Spell (Daniel Dennett). These authors champion atheism and the ideology that it has spawned, namely, secularism.

They argue that religion is responsible for some of the worst atrocities in history and that society’s future lies in a secularism that would keep religion out of the public square.

These authors often quote stark examples in history of the chaos and bloodshed for which religion was allegedly responsible. And one of their favourites is…. (cont’d)

Read the full article here

Pastors Under Probe for Lavish Lifestyles

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15 November 2007
The Straits Times 

They are accused of spending donations on items like private jets and mansions.

Mr Roberts boarding a plane for New York to appear on the Larry King Live Show last week to answer allegations against him in a lawsuit. His ministry is one of those under investigation. -- PHOTO: APATLANTA – TELEVANGELIST leaders at several mega-churches in the United States have come under scrutiny following accusations that they have used donations illegally to fund opulent lifestyles.

A Senate committee is investigating leaders from six ministries, including Mr Creflo Dollar, the senior pastor of World Changers Church International, who preaches that God will reward the faithful with material riches.

It is a gospel that has won him a 25,000-strong congregation – and a Rolls Royce, a mansion and a private Gulfstream jet.

In a separate case, Mr Richard Roberts, president of the evangelical Oral Roberts University (ORU), is facing similar accusations of living lavishly on misspent university funds…… (continued)

Read more here>>>

Wages At the Top

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Nov 1st 2007
From Economist.com

BERTIE AHERN, Ireland’s taoiseach (prime minister), has good reason to smile. He recently accepted his 26th pay rise in ten years, taking his annual salary to €310,000 ($446,000). He is now better rewarded for leading a country than most of his counterparts, including George Bush.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s pay increase this week of around 140% only bumps France’s president up to $346,000 a year.

Heading a small, rich country is the best bet. Earlier this year, Singapore’s prime minister was awarded a 26% rise to some $2.1m.

Salary at the top

Read the latest related TOC article on Ministerial salaries here>>>

Go in Search of A Church By Way of The Web

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Your congregation may be just a click away, but some say the devil is in the details
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
USA TODAY 

Across the country, fall is high season for “church shopping,” as people in search of a new faith community to call home set about the task of finding one. But that doesn’t mean they’re showing up, singing hymns, shaking hands and sampling doughnuts at a different church each week.

Instead, observers say, they’re visiting church websites and evaluating congregations — often without having actually met anyone at the church. And that has some church people worried that the practice of faith is getting ever more impersonal — and consequently less powerful — in an age driven by efficiency and impatience.

Church shoppers “used to have to go to the service, sit in the back row and watch,” says Tom Bandy, president of EasumBandy & Associates, a church consultancy. “The website has just replaced that. The color schemes, the formatting, the language, the music — those things powerfully reveal who they (in the church) want to come there and who’s going to be accepted there.”

As tools for reaching potential worshipers, church websites are growing in number and getting more sophisticated…. (continued)

Read the full article here>>>

Gays and biology: Who is right, PM or the MP?

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Andy Ho
Sat, Oct 27, 2007
The Straits Times

Some time ago I got to know this journalist. He frequently writes on socio-political affairs for the Straits Times with attempts to get his readers to think deeper on the underlying truths on contemporary issues.

His latest article was written in view of the controversial statements of the biological nature of homosexuality used as the basis for human rights in reappealing against the 377A debate.

He is a fine example how a Christian, through his vocation in the marketplace, can serve God and people with relevance and effectiveness in the world.

IN THE parliamentary debate over the continued criminalisation of gay sodomy, MP Lim Biow Chuan (Marine Parade) disagreed with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who said that growing scientific evidence shows homosexuality is substantially inborn.

What does the research say? To me, there are four big items that are not what they seem to be.

  • First, twins are not what they seem to be. Identical twins share the same genetic make-up while non-identical twins share only half of that, so if the former show a higher similarity in rates of gays, that would suggest a genetic component in homosexuality.

    • According to some doctors, previous studies of identical twins suggest that 30-60 per cent of the incidence of gayness can be attributed to genetics.

    Indeed, many such studies up to the early 1990s indeed suggested so. An Australian study published even in 2000 gave figures in the same ballpark.

    Hoewever, many twin studies are methodologically flawed. For one thing, a social phenomenon as complex as gay behaviour is usually reduced to a single item…….. (continued)

Read the full article here>>>

Business Brief on HCMC

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Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam and is located near the Mekong Delta. It has a growing population of 5.1 million people and is governed by the Communist Party.

HCMCTouted as the second China, this city is the most important economic center in Vietnam. Accounting a big percentage of Vietnam’s economy, it produces more than one-fourth of the country’s gross domestic product and industrial production and which pays nearly one- third of its taxes.

But even as I strolled the streets (my third visit in 3 years), I observed that the changes to the city’s landscape were only considerable. The standard of living, in my opinion has also not improved very much with its public transport under-developed without a much needed city train system considering HCM being a city.

A Visit to SBG

A visit to the Singapore Business Group (SBG) brought me to their co-ordinator, Mr Peter Cheong, a fellow Singaporean who had been in Vietnam since 1988. He serves voluntarily in SBG- a non-profit organisation that was started by a group of Singaporeans working in HCMC in 1992. Presently, they have a total of 285 members in their fold.

Interestingly, Peter (in left picture) shared that this city was host to an estimated 3,000 Singaporeans working and living in here. There are more than 500 Singapore companies presently operating in HCMC.

According to him, operating a business here is still a challenge with its many laws catering for different groups of people. For instance, a foreigner would have a different law applied in comparison to a local. Therefore it is safe to say that the laws here prevents foreigners from leeching off its country and people, but a put-off to foreign investors.

Singapore’s Presence in HCMC

My research led me to discover that Singapore’s economic interests in this city is ever-growing. SembCorp Utilities Pte Ltd, works with the Ho Chi Minh City’s authorities, is building a huge 700 MW thermo power plant in the city. Singapore’s real estate companies like Keppel Land have several projects in the city such as the ongoing 64-hectare “Saigon Sports City” project in District 2, and CapitaLand, a fairly new entrant to Vietnam’s market had signed a MOU to develop 600 homes in Saigon South next to the Phu My Hung Urban Area, its second project in less a year. The Singapore-based Dairy Farm International is operating some supermarket outlets in the city.

With Vietnam now a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), their laws will be “forced” to be harmonious with international conventions and commitments, and gradually, I believe doing business in Vietnam would be more attractive and friendly for foreign investors and entrepreneurs.

Yangon marchers ‘not afraid to die’

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Al Jazeera News • September 28, 2007

By Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Yangon, Myanmar

He had a craggy face, a limp, he was 60 years of age and had a resolve that underlined Myanmar’s new drive for democracy.

“I am not afraid to die,” he told me in halting English. “They will only kill flesh and bones. Spirit cannot be destroyed, so in the end we will win.”

Then he walked to the head of several thousand protesters in central Yangon and advanced towards the waiting soldiers, stern faced, fingers on the triggers of theirweapons.

IN VIDEO

Al Jazeera exclusive from inside Myanmar

He raised his hand and stood there in a gesture of defiance. It met with applause from the protesters and people who watched the unfolding drama from their windows and balconies.

The soldiers did nothing – but it was only temporary. Minutes later they acted.

Read the rest of this insider’s story here>>>