Driving through the Dust

While packing my room this morning, at about 0530, my Dad called to ask what the whether was like. I looked out and saw the sky looked diffusely cloudy, with a tint of orange that I chose to attribute to the sunrise. I told him it was probably going to rain.

I woke Roger up and went out to load up my car. The car was covered in speckles of dust.

I left Armidale this morning at about 0620 with Roger.

We went to the Girraween station to fill up. When we left College I didn't want to damage my trilby hat by putting it in a bag, so I wore it on my head. I was also wearing sunglasses. This combination of clothes led me to receiving some suspicious looks while at the petrol station. After filling up with exorbitantly priced unleaded (129.9c/L) we headed off on the New England Highway.

Visibility was very low and the sky was orange. Visibility was about 400-500m.

We went through Thunderbolt's way and it was reasonably uneventful. We crossed many bountiful rivers and I regretted not bringing my fishing rod.

We stopped at Gloucester and went to the fish and chip shot just after the roundabout on the road that goes towards Newcastle. I got a vege burger and Roger got something else.

We drove on towards the Pacific Highway. At around pre-noon Roger said the Sun was blue. I could see its blueness on the reflections off other cars, but could not see the sun directly due to it being overhead.

Eventually we hit the Pacific Highway and Roger fell asleep. For a while here the sky went very orange but then reverted to the paler orange.

We stopped again at the 'last service station before Sydney' on the F3 and I went to fill up my car. They only had the ethanol blended unleaded (~113c/L) and two types of premium unleaded (~125c/L and ~129c/L). As you can see it was cheaper for me to by premium fuel here than plain unleaded in Armidale. I took the 125c/L option and Filled up about 25L. I had travelled 375km since the last top up, which means I got 15km/L or 6.67L/100km, which is quite decent.

The dust was clearing up mostly by now, and we could see for about 800m-1km. We went to Sydney and I dropped Roger off at Pennant Hills station and headed off to my uncle's house in Guildford. I made a wrong turn on Victoria St somewhere and ended up at some campus of the University of Western Sydney but I managed to get back on track towards Guildford by going on a certain James Ruse drive.

Interesting animals sighted on this journey include a rabbit (possibly a hair) and some sort of bird of prey.

I am at Sydney Domestic Airport now and there is no indication that my flight has been delayed.

I'm on a boat

Here are pictures of me in an inflatable boat I got from Big W some time ago. Photographs by Wanthony taken at Dumaresq Dam.

Ducklings

A few days ago I was near the duck pond at night when I saw two ducks. One of them hissed at me, and I saw that the other was sitting on something, probably eggs. I tried to get closer to take a photo, but the non-sitting duck flew up in my face and chased me away. There was no physical contact.

Anyway today I saw the ducklings, that is all.

Teaching Tamil Tigers

Here is an account of an Australian doctor who went to Sri Lanka some time in 2007. He ended up teaching medicine to soldiers from the LTTE's medical wing. He makes a comment at the end about how it felt strange being investigated for terrorism even though he is 'profoundly Australian.'

Miswaak studies

In Islam our prophet had a strong tradition of encouraging people to clean their teeth. They used a stick called a miswak, usually taken from certain types of trees.
Believers are encouraged to clean their teeth before or after doing certain things like sleep, prayer or eating.

These days we generally use toothpaste with a brush to clean our teeth, but its not advisable to use toothpaste so many times a day, so the tradition of miswak has been preserved. It has also been preserved because a lot of people don't trust the toothbrush and/or believe the miswak is superior.

At a lot of talks and stuff you will hear the speaker extolling the many benefits of miswak, like its alleged anti-bacterial properties. I never really believed it wholeheartedly, instead preferring to think the miswak's benefits were mainly from the mechanical brushing of the teeth. I did some searching on pubmed today, after seeing pubmed being used on House. Here are some of the results.

Strong antibacterial effect of miswak against oral microorganisms associated with periodontitis and caries.

Sofrata AH, Claesson RL, Lingström PK, Gustafsson AK.

Periodontology Department, Institute of Odontology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. abier.sofrataki.se

BACKGROUND: The chewing stick (miswak) is used for oral hygiene in many parts of the world. In addition to the mechanical removal of plaque, an antibacterial effect has been postulated; however, tests of miswak extract from Salvadora persica (Arak) disclosed only low to moderate antibacterial effects. This may be attributable to the extraction process. Our aim was to test in vitro the antibacterial effect of miswak pieces, without extraction, on bacteria implicated in the etiology of periodontitis and caries. METHODS: Miswak pieces were standardized by size and weight (0.07 and 0.14 g) and tested against Streptococcus mutans, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans (previously Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans), Porphyromonas gingivalis, and, as a reference, Haemophilus influenzae. The miswak pieces were tested in two ways: embedded in the agar plate or suspended above the agar plate. RESULTS: The inhibitory effect was most pronounced on P. gingivalis, A. actinomycetemcomitans, and H. influenzae, less on S. mutans, and least on L. acidophilus. Suspended miswak had comparable or stronger effects than miswak embedded in agar. The 0.14-g suspended miswak exhibited significantly greater inhibition on A. actinomycetemcomitans and H. influenzae than the 0.14-g miswak embedded in agar (P<0.01>

PMID: 18672998 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

The effect of miswak extract on plaque pH. An in vivo study.

Sofrata A, Lingström P, Baljoon M, Gustafsson A.

Department of Periodontology, Institute of Odontology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. abier.sofrata@ki.se

The aim of this study was to document changes in plaque pH when an acidic challenge was followed by rinsing with miswak extract (Salvadora persica), and to evaluate the effect of miswak rinse on parotid gland secretion rate. Plaque pH was measured in 3-day-old plaque using the microtouch electrode. Rinsing with miswak extract, compared with water rinsing, resulted in protracted elevation of plaque pH (>6.0). The difference in plaque pH between miswak extract and water rinse was statistically significant at 30 min (p <>

PMID: 17823507 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Effects of extracts of miswak and derum on proliferation of Balb/C 3T3 fibroblasts and viability of cariogenic bacteria.

Darmani H, Nusayr T, Al-Hiyasat AS.

Department of Applied Biology, Faculty of Science, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan. darmani@just.edu.jo

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the effects of extracts of two chewing sticks on proliferation of fibroblasts and viability of cariogenic bacteria. METHODS: Aqueous extracts of miswak (Salvadora persica; Arak tree) and derum (Juglans regia; walnut tree) were prepared and their effects investigated on growth of Balb/C 3T3 mouse fibroblasts by measuring the mitochondrial succinic dehydrogenase activity. Furthermore, the effects on the viability of various cariogenic bacteria (Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus salivarius, Lactobacillus casei and Actinomyces viscosus) was also determined. RESULTS: The data revealed that Balb/C 3T3 fibroblasts exposed to aqueous extracts of miswak or derum showed an increase in cell proliferation by 156% and 255%, respectively, in comparison with controls (p <>

PMID: 16637906 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

The Rifqa Bary affair

This news is about three months old, but I only heard about it today. It is set in the USA, and involves a Sri Lankan Muslim family. Watch the video to learn more.



Here is an (unintentionally) entertaining piece done on the story by the Christian Broadcasting Network in the USA.


Here is an interview with her parents,


It seems a very strange case. She said a lot of things in the first video which just didn't fly, like about it being in the Qur'an that she has to be killed. She also said that it would be "a great honour" for her parents to kill her. I assume she grabbed that from the phrase "honour killing." The word 'honour' in 'honour killing' is more to do with mitigating the dishonour that the victim has brought upon the family, rather than any 'honour' that comes in killing them, and as far as I know honour killings are not really practiced by Sri Lankan Muslims. She also said her father said something like "if you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me." That doesn't really sound like something a Muslim would say when disowning a Christian convert, given the esteem in which we hold him, they would more likely refer to something like the bible or belief in the trinity.

Her parents seem pretty liberal religiously, although conservative when it comes to studies and such, and I don't understand why she would feel to make up such allegations about her own family like that. She talked about how her parents said they would send her to Sri Lanka where there is an asylum for crazy people. I assume she was talking about the one in Angoda. Sri Lanka is not a Muslim country and I don't know why they would throw someone in there for being Christian. Her parents were probably talking about her obsessiveness with the Bible, going around school evangelising and things like that.

Fishing with Tousif

A couple of days ago I bought an inflatable dinghy from Big W. It was about 2.4m long with a weight capacity of about $317kg. I took it out for a test run on the Dumaresq Dam, hereon referred to as the dam, with Anthony. We rowed to the north east end of the dam and back.

The next day I tried going fishing at the dam without the boat, but with a hand line. I also had no luck. I went and bought a rod and tried with that, again nothing.

I'm not continually repeating that I caught nothing just to build up to a climax where I catch something, I haven't caught anything on a hook up to the time of typing this up.

On Saturday I went with Tousif after Zuhr.

While we were inflating the boat we got a puncture on the floor chamber. It came with a repair kit but I drove back to Big W and got some duck tape and sealed it with that.

We rowed to a place about 40m from the Dam wall, and it was about 5m deep. We just generally chilled while waiting for something to bite, but nothing did.

Tousif accidentally brought his phone on the boat, so we took some pictures. Maybe I will upload them later.

On our way back we ran out of petrol about 1km out from Armidale. We were getting late for the iftar in town, so Tousif called Daniel to pick him up, and I called Roger for petrol.

Roger came with Vincent and some petrol, which spilled onto my hands while I was pouring it in, giving my hands a distinct petrol smell. After that we all headed to the iftar. I had to eat with a spoon because of my petrol hands.

Coff's Harbour

I had to go to a clinic in Coff's Harbour to determine fitness to join the Army Reserve. I was planning to fast so I asked Taulama if he wanted to come, and I could drop him off at the beach. We eventually convinced Roger to come as well, and soon Theresa was joining us since she could go home for a while.

I woke up at about 0430 and ate with the suhur crew, and we left at about 0607.

On the way to Coff's there are three right turns on Waterfall Way. The first is a T intersection where you can go left or right, before Ebor, the second is where you can go straight or right, after Ebor. The third was just following the road to the right in Dorrigo.

Eventually Tess asked if she could be dropped off in Bellingen, and we complied.

We got into Coff's and I found the clinic. We then tried to find Harbour Drive but got lost. We identified two roads near where we were and used the google maps application on my phone to get our bearings. We got to Harbour drive and I dropped them off near the beach and then drove back up to the clinic, where I had about 10 min to my appointment. I went in and got cleared and then went back to the beach. I parked near some Yacht Club. I called Taulama and asked him where he was and he told me to follow a walkway to the left (when facing the sea). I did this, and there was a sign saying 'Beach access 500m." I walked, and then came upon another sign saying "Beach access 90m." I kept going and eventually came onto a sand walkway leading onto a beach that I couldn't see at the time because of all the trees . There was a sign saying "Park beach south" with signs warning that swimming was not advised, that there was a strong current, and that there was no lifeguard on duty on the day. I walked on.

While walking through the path I could hear movement in the vegetation around me. After about 15 metres I came to a sand bank, where there was an inlet of salt water that went in quite far. There was another sandbank across the inlet, and that was where Taulama and Roger were.

I had to cross, but I had not come prepared to get wet, as I thought I would not feel like swimming since I was fasting. I crossed anyway and got my clothes wet. I figured I could stay out of the water in the hour before leaving and my clothes would dry in the sun.

We did a few things at the beach, namely;

• we found a forklift crate base thing, and took it out into the water and tried to sit on it
• We tried jumping against the waves, or swimming under them
• We dug holes. I covered my hole with sticks and then covered those sticks with sand, later on Roger's foot fell into the hole.

When we left Taulama gave me some spare clothes he had. Roger mistakenly got changed before we crossed the body of water to get back, so we had to carry him accross. It was tough, the water was shoulder-height and the current was about 1m/s.

We left at about 1300 and went to Sawtell to pick up some prescription. Then we went to Bellingen and picked up Theresa. Then we went back. At around Ebor, with about 80km to go, I was too tired to drive so handed over to Taulama.