01/15/2026 Thursday
China invented vaccination before the English (Edward Jenner, using cowpox against smallpox 1796). The Chinese used human scabs instead, which can be more risky than cowpox. There's also not so imperial Chinese accounts of vaccination even about 1000 prior to this:
The United States' crack on immigration policy using deportation as punishments for all crimes or misdemeanors or anything the general Americans dislike, is somehow only deteriorates American value even more: i.e. Holding immigrants to higher moral standards than American citizen:
Donations for suspended Ford worker who heckled Trump are more than $800,000, GoFundMe campaign for Renee Good closed at over $1.5 Million, and her killer Jonathan Ross for $743,416 as of Thursday. I supposed that political views/opinions are now expressed using GoFundMe.
01/14/2026 Wednesday
5 Books recommendation from Google Brain's Andrew Ng (computer scientist on AI):
1. “Human Compatible” by Stuart Russell
2. “Life 3.0” by Max Tegmark
3. “The Master Algorithm” by Pedro Domingos
4. “Superintelligence” by Nick Bostrom
5. “Zero To One” by Peter Thiel
01/12/2026 Monday
It seems that Pastor Bob is interested on the topic of disability. He also mentioned in the last episode that his son Josiah was a humbling lesson for him. If I were to join the dots, I would think his son was disabled, but I don't know. Because of this, I have been also interested on the same topic, after seeing a couple of such cases from GCC.
An interesting note by Pastor Dave, on Lev 21:16-23: Those who are disabled, deformed, cannot be near to God to offer the food. This is very interesting. Bob placed it under aesthetic appeal. I think there's more to it. More than even the standard answer (i.e. One must come before God without blemish, for God is Holy.) This is a reminder of what it is to be the original man, the perfect man before God, an archetype of Christ as well. This whole passage definitely deserve more depth than I can do now.
Calvinist vs. Frank Turek on Free Will: This is a fun one and this is my comment on the Facebook:
Frank: Why doesn't He regenerate everyone?
A: That's a question for yourself, because you are the one who interpreted He wants everyone to be saved, viz. no soul should go to hell.
Frank: You made God finite in His love but infinite in His justice.
A: Only if you think that every sinner deserves God's grace.
There's been a few exchanges I've participated on Facebook on the recent hot news about an ICE agent (Jonathan Ross) fatally shooting an extreme liberal lesbian, Renee Good (activist against ICE), from the her driver's side window as she drove away evading capture. The debate between left and right is now about whether Ross killed her in self-defense or not. I believe these videos show clearly that Ross did not have to kill her, killing her simply does not secure his own life despite him standing in her way as she rushed off brushing part of his flesh, for he shot her after he was hit and she was already freeing herself of him. This was my comment in the private FB group called The Cabana Chronicles Group:
I agree with you fully. In fact, those who cannot discern whether it is right or not to shoot and kill someone "from the back" with hateful slur, we do not have the same view on pro-life at all. Your pro-life is but a self-centered, self-absorbed, self-satisfying with feelings of cute puppy, pretty kitten type of pro-life, and maybe even tribalistic, cleverly masking them by using Bible verses and the Lord's name in vain to boost your self-righteousness on the injection of dopamine by cute feelings, just like the shooter murdering someone in the name of "self-defense". My pursuit of pro-life is of God alone according to His righteousness alone which has no favor in right or left wing rhetoric.
01/11/2026 Sunday
After church service, we attended our Crossroads' first general meeting and Nadia was impressed (I as well) at how well it was organized and the detailed content from explanation of splitting the church service into two sessions (9am & 11am) beginning in March to the hiring process of the assistant pastor, to trustee replacement, to addressing the concern of not enough non-Asian staffs. The pastor was humorous when he wished he could change his own ethnicity. I think from a pastoral care aspect, whoever raised this issue may find lack of care or attention towards himself/herself or perhaps others as non-Asians, and it needs to be addressed sensitively in a more private settings, regardless of disagreement on the matter of diversity or whether or not there was discrimination of care or not.
I also found out that their special discipleship program/small group, was based on Randy Pope's (founding pastor of the Perimeter Church in Atlanta) The Journey program. He seems well known in the PCA for his discipleship program.