Long time readers of this journal know how much I have disdain for all those sightings people have of religious icons or the divine in everyday random shapes and then proclaim such Apophenia as miracles and messages from God.

Honestly if God wanted the attention of people, I am sure a much more convincing and profound method would be used.

Most of the time these are stories of visions of Jesus on a palm tree or in ice cream or the Virgin Mary in a water stain, but Christianity is not the only faith plagued by these "sightings". Iconoclastic Islam has them too, but instead of say images of Muhammad, usually it is visions of he inscription for the Arabic word for God, which is Allah.

In this particular case the inscription was revealed on a piece of rather rancid looking gristle that a patron was about to eat but then suddenly noticed the "word of God" looking back at him in all His artery clogging glory.



"When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind," stated the restaurant owner where God made his mark through fried beefy fat.

The best part is that quote, as they call in theologians to study the piece of fried remains and to make up discern from it exactly what people want to hear and believe, imagine that.

Best stick with Jesus over Allah, as he is not as fattening and plus he's chocolaty, or if you prefer, Chimichanga style!

I'm sure half my friends have seen this, however, in case you have not, check out this video of the most realistic looking fully animated dinosaur yet created.


Extinct, my ASS! from The Original Joe Fisher on Vimeo.

This was at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History.

Thanks to stokerbramwell for the link!

Went out Friday with my friends angrymeat, donaldson, pdubie, and wolfbrotherjoe to watch both Hellboy II and the Dark Knight back to back, fortunately early enough to receive matinee prices for both and avoid the no doubt enormous weekend crowds for the latter.

Spoiler free thoughts below.

Hellboy II: Alright, it isn’t as good as the Dark Knight and not nearly as epic but what made this movie for myself personally is that it was just fun. As much as I really enjoyed the Dark Knight, it was nice to know that not all “superhero” movies have to be utterly serious or some sort of Alan Moore like deconstruction. Sometimes such a movie can just be a colorful, action-fantasy filled humorous ride with straightforward fun characters, well as straightforward as a demon with a giant gun, a merman, a girl who can imitate the Torch and a walking gas bag can be.

The villain isn’t memorable as he is just a plot device and the story is simplistic (and sometimes that is a good thing), but the film is so utterly colorful and the creatures imaginative, it just reminds be of those great, old, fantasy tales you never see anymore. The movie is well worth it, if you liked the first one, you’ll love this one.

Dark Knight: First, wow, the Watchman trailer, it is even more amazing on the big screen…

Alright, like everybody else, I am going to say this movie was magnificent, and dark, mustn’t forget dark. I am not sure what I can add to this that everyone else hasn’t already covered in adequate detail. I will say I was pleasantly surprised by the story, which is far more intricate and involved then what one may be lead to believe from the previews. This is simply put, the first Batman movie that makes you really think.

Of course the updated characters are really well done. It is simply put, so easy for Hollywood to completely ruin long established comic characters, they do it so often, and I worried that would happen here. I am relieved not only to be proven wrong, but to be oh so wrong as to say none of the major characters have even been so well portrayed.

Of course everyone is raving about how the Joker was portrayed, and it is all rightly deserved praise. I really liked the old Jack Nicholson version, it worked well for him, and I was a big fan on the voice work Mark Hamell did also, however it is true, Heath Ledger outclassed them all in his portrayal or a truly sociopathic Joker who has no motivation other then to create chaos and prove everyone is perhaps as bad as he is. No sad backstory, not a victim, just pure evil.

Pencil Trick.

Perhaps even truer when it comes to improved characterization was with Harvey Dent/Two Face, who perhaps outside of the Nineties animated series was never done well on a moving screen, especially with that terrible Tommy Lee Jones version. So perhaps I was more impressed with Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal then anyone else’s.

So it will be interesting to see if Warner Brothers can keep this up. Dark Knight is undoubtedly the best written, acted, and produced Batman film, however Hollywood has this terrible and all too common record of producing two excellent movies based on a comicbook hero and then somehow getting greedy and then ruining the franchise with the third movie, they did it with first series of Batman movies, with the first series of the Superman movies, and they did it with Spiderman and the X-Men. Will a third Batman movie (and there will be a third) break the curse? I hope so, because after this masterpiece, a failure will look all that much more stark in contrast.

Bonus fun, brief portrayal of the Joker through history.

Nujood Ali is a 10 year old girl in Yemen, she may look like your average child but she has already been married and divorced.

That isn't the worst of it, during her arranged marriage she suffered from routine beatings and rapes before she finally snuck away to get a divorce and return to her family, who according to the Sharia law they live under, had to compensate the husband, who will not be punished for his domestic abuse.

Not really much to add that really needs saying, other then how can you not feel for this child, and make no mistake, that is what she is, a child. Reading stories like this does color slightly more negative my view of traditional culture and religion, or at least add credence to my view not all cultures, traditions,and beliefs are equal, but her ability to escape and tell her story does lift my view of the human spirit.

Man, British tabloids are the best!

The standard of journalism, the always reliable Sun (alright, we can all laugh now), has posted about the the new, so called by them, "S&M Barbie" that is to be released by Mattel, which is really the Black Canary Barbie, easily recognizable to pretty much any mainstream comicbook or Justice League fan that has been around for the last, ohhh 60 years.

The British religious advocacy group, Christian Voice, didn't wait long in taking the bait, “Barbie has always been on the tarty side and this is taking it too far. A children’s doll in sexually suggestive clothing is irresponsible – it’s filth.”. Their reasoning, because the Black Canary Barbie has the audacity to wear fishnet stockings, with a motorcycle jacket no less! What they don't likely realize, this is her standard outfit, in fact pretty much the same outfit she had six decades ago back in 1947 when she was introduced in Flash Comics (which was marketed to kids, BTW).

Meet Sean Tevis, Information Architect and self-proclaimed geek from Kansas (yes, there are geeks in Kansas), who decided to challenge his state representative for his seat in the 15th district, which makes up part of the large suburb of Kansas City called Olathe.

Sean, who states he is tired of his "anti-abortion, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, pro-surveillance, anti-gay incumbent" decided to take matters into his own hands and run in opposition. With every campaign though, you need a coffer of money, and a method to appeal to people get said donations for that coffer. So what better way then to appeal to fellow geek travelers through the power of a humorous XKCD style webcomic! In this case, one called "It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner", and it is pretty accurate when it comes to sarcastically explaining the fact of style over substance when running for public office while simultaneously pitching his cause.

From this web comic he's looking specifically to raise $8.34 from 3,000 people (no state rep in Kansas history has ever exceeded 644 donors).

As of this writing, he has 1414 donors so far!

This image is simply made of win..



Please feel free to caption this picture yourself :D

Yay nerdy astronomy news!

Classifying bodies in the solar system have been controversial since Pluto got demoted from the big leagues of real planets to the "B Team" of the Solar System, otherwise known as Dwarf Planets. Since that fateful day Ceres and Eris were the only other worlds in that category (the jury is still out on Charon). Well yesterday the IAU announced the newest Dwarf Planet, Makemake, originally called 2005 FY9 when discovered back 2005 around the same time as Eris.

Makemake, named after the mythical creator of the world according to the ancient people of Easter Island, is about three-quarters of the diameter of Pluto, its larger cousin. The world is roughly on average 48 AU out from the sun during it's elliptical orbit which ranges from 38 AU to 53 AU (to give an idea what that distance is, Pluto's orbit ranges from 30 AU to 50 AU from the sun during its orbit, a single Astronomical Unit is 93 million miles).

Of course a host of other bodies await "promotion" to Dwarf Planet status, so we will see if the number of dwarf worlds will outnumber the eight official planets in the near future.

The con report that was a week in the making!

Well not really, just wanted to make sure I got all the various photographs taken my yours truly and friends before I post this, because really it is the pictures you all want to see. :)

Convergence is a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention held up in Sheraton Bloomington Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota and was the convention I elected to attend for the first time over Anthrocon and was in it's tenth year and thus a four day convention this year.

As for the convention itself, I haven't had this much fun at a convention for a good 10-15 years, it was an absolute and complete blast. The con itself had around 3000 people I believe and a little something for almost everyone in various "geeky" fandoms: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gaming, Filk, Anime, Comics, Art, Costuming, and of course some 45 official convention room parties, I just wish I had an online version of the Programming Guide to show. Fortunately this is also entirely a fan run, not for profit convention, which in the world of corporate run conventions, truly does make a positive difference, because the people who run and staff Convergence, really actually care about the fandoms and the con and it shows, really I cannot think of one area of the convention to criticize, everything was extremely well done, from registration, the con suite, to the panels was top notch. No Anthrocon like overbearing "I need to prove I am a tough guy" security either. In fact my only complaint was the fact the hotel had only three elevators, a problem in a tower hotel with 3000 people (AC folks know exactly how this is).

Super brief report on what we did, because honestly does anyone really read multiple post, pages and pages long con reports detailing every little thing?!

Thursday Highlights: Uneventful drive northbound with my roomies at the con feren, and lady_curmudgeon, with a stop in Black River Falls. Didn't actually do anything at the convention other then registration, instead went to a steak house to celebrate feren's mother's birthday with his family, later we saw a local major fireworks display.

Friday Highlights: Watched Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning, a hilarious Finnish fan made parody of Star Trek and Babylon 5. Watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Director's Cut) with humorous live commentary by the guys who did the original effects and the new added CGI for the director's cut. Visited every cabana party and sampled their drinks.. twice.

Saturday Highlights: Star Wars with Peter Mayhew (that is Chewbacca yo), who said his favorite scene was the chess match "let the Wookie win". Witnessed the convention Masquerade which is the annual costume extravaganza. Finally Attack of the Killer B's where a series of really bad B-movies are shown without sound and a group of convention guests sit in the front row coming up with their own impromptu, unscripted, hilarious dialog, also comes with in room created music, including a Theremin! Think MST3K but with music! Once again visited most of the parties.

Sunday Highlights: Iron Artist, where artists "battle" to bring to life whatever scene is chosen to the delight of the audience. Women and Comicbooks panel.

Monday Highlights: Went home, stopped at the Orange Moose for lunch, again in Black River Falls. Wait until nest year.. *sigh*

Guests Met: Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester of MST3K), Harry Knowles (Aint It Cool News), John Kovalic (Dork Tower), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca and who is REALLY tall), Christopher Jones (Comicbook artist), Melissa Kaercher (Comicbook colorist), there were a great many more guests but that is who I met.

Now for the portion you have all been waiting for, or simply skipped down to, the pictures!

Convergence Pictures! 100% Fursuit Free! Images taken by feren, vorrant, and myself. Simply click the image to see the gallery, *Update* I am told Rogue is holding the ashes of Michael Sheard in the urn. *Note* All other galleries are friends only.

When you have no constitution that blocks religions and their laws from becomes the laws of the land, even in a modern western nation, stuff like the following may occur:

Britain’s Chief Justice, Lord Phillips stated that he believes there is no reason why the principles of Sharia law couldn't be used in the meditation of legal family disputes. For those who do not know, Sharia law is the religious laws of Islam guiding the everyday lives of devoted Muslims. Although the chief justice assured that the all too common corporal measurements of punishment in Sharia such as flogging, cutting off limbs, stoning, and other medieval punishments which are normally meted out for violations and that British common law is superior and the ultimate guide lines.

This comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, suggested that perhaps for Muslim citizens, the religious law of Shaira may be acceptable to use in matters of "aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and authorized structures of mediation and conflict resolution", since it is simple "unavoidable" that Sharia law will be used, the supposedly secular government of Britain may as well embrace it, throwing out centuries of western jurisprudence.

I have no idea what marches through the head's of bureaucrats and government leaders when they come up with ridiculous ideas such as these. Perhaps it is the desire to look multicultural or ‘sensitive’ that guides them entertain the possibility of using a series of misogynistic, barbaric, religious, tribal rules for any legal ruling in a modern court of justice.

Really that is the beauty of our constitution, the only real line in the sand that prevents such ideas from being seriously entertained by social engineers in our government’s ranks; even then I worry about someone here eventually proclaiming that a particular religion’s laws should be used as the legal basis for our court decisions, with people either gleefully tossing aside the constitution or being so apathetic that they cannot bring themselves to care enough to make a stand.

Black Holes are racist?

From the enigma known as Texas comes the racially inflammatory spar over the term "Black Hole". It all started when county commissioners were lamenting over problems with the central collections office and the fact paperwork seems to simply disappear on a regular basis, prompting Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, to refer to the office as a "Black Hole".

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, took the remark as racist, yelling "Excuse me!" and claiming the office was instead a "White Hole".

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, also black, to demand of Kenneth Mayfield an apology for his original "racially insensitive" remark using the term "Black Hole". Mayfield refused, pointing out quite correctly that a Black Hole is a collapsed star who's gravitational field is so strong it causes light to bend back towards the singularity and not radiate into space, giving the appearance of pure black, hence the name, unlike the intentional race based remark of "White Hole" thrown back.

This caused the situation to escalate forcing other county officials to quickly break up the situation and get the meeting back on track as the TV news crew was there, filming the entire embarrassing affair for all to see.

Can't sue God? Do the next best thing, sue the Bible

Meet Bradley LaShawn Fowler, who is openly gay, this in itself may not be remarkable in any ordinary way. Folwer believes though because of his sexual orientation he has become an outcast from his own family, suffered "physical discomfort" and depression all stemming from beliefs based on the Bible's take on homosexuality as sin, another not so unusual claim.

What is unusual is what comes next…

Because of this he decided to sue, but how does one sue the Bible? After all one cannot sue the original authors, if you believe in the divinity of the Bible, that would be ultimately God, if you do not, the authors have long since passed away and never claimed ownership or copyright over what they wrote either. Either way, it would seem impossible if not downright ridiculous.

Fowler though believes he has found a way, by suing Zondervan (who prints the New International Version) and Thomas Nelson Publishing (who prints the New King James Version) for a total of $70 million in damages according to the lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Mr. Fowler will be representing himself in these cases against the publishers of these particular translations, although they do not own the translations. He sites why he targets these two publishers, it is the translations, because, according to Fowler, the word "homosexual" is specifically used in verse 1 Corinthians 6:9 in these two translations (verses the original English word of "effeminate" in the original KJV). Because of this, Mr. Folwer feels the publishing houses made the Bible more specifically hostile to gays, thus by proxy, his own life miserable.

Of course the lawsuit will not succeed, as it comes smashing against two separate clauses of the first amendment, that of freedom of speech and that of freedom of religion. It should be tossed and Fowler fined for wasting the court's time. Doesn't matter how you view the Bible, gays, the Bible's view on gays, Christianity, religion, whatever, the first amendment stands clear on this issue.


Personally I found it fascinating because it is indicative of the culture where too many people have become "lawsuit happy" and seek damages through the courts are all sorts of frivolous reasons.

It all started at the University of Central Florida where Catholic Mass is routinely held for those who seek it. One of the parishioners though had other plans that day during mass, he sought to capture the Eucharist, or more specifically the wafer of the Eucharist.

Webster Cook, a student senator at the convention decided to "capture" one of the Eucharist wafers to show to his friend who was curious about Catholicism. However this ran afoul of the belief that the Eucharist wafer becomes literally the body of Christ through a ceremony known as transubstantiation when consecrated by the priest during the ceremony. Because of this, the church became openly upset and one of the nuns actually attempted to take the Eucharist wafer back.

Cook did manage to leave with the wafer only to discover his actions became a major issue with the Catholic church and the university with priests comparing it to a kidnapping (hence my title), a hate crime, and a "mortal sin" of the highest order.

"It is hurtful," said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. "Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."

Soon Bill Donohue of the Catholic league even got involved calling for the university to dispense justice even calling for possible expulsion. Worse still, Cook claimed there was even death treats sent to him. All in all, the situation became out of control. Believing his life was in danger Cook eventually returned the wafer to the church, although the university is still looking into the matter and the possibility of punishment.

Thanks to Pharyngula for assembling all of this. Warning, strong opinion and language in his brief and commentary.

As I am not Catholic I am unsure what to think of all of this, my first thought is how utterly ridiculous this all is, after all I just see what he took as a wafer of bread, one that was initially given to him, so technically it wasn't thief let alone "kidnapping". In my mind, it would mean nothing for him to go home with it. However, that being said, I know the Eucharist holds a very deep meaning to faithful Catholics who see it as the body of Christ, it represents the most important part of the mass, and therefore I assume simply taking and walking away with the Eucharist wafer is equivalent in Catholic eyes as a serious affront to the church and to God. I have grave doubts Cook was that naive about the seriousness of his actions, and it is very poor taste wither you believe in any of this or not, to enter a house of worship am openly cause problems during the most solemn ceremonies.

What is your opinion?

We all know how much Hollywood enjoys remakes, banking on the idea that we all will accept the notion that the classics we enjoy will somehow be improved through modern CGI and a modern perspective.

This time the classic that is being "re-imaged" for the 21st century is The Day The Earth Stood Still, which is a defining Science Fiction classic and easily arguably the first movie masterpiece and serious film of the genre since perhaps Metropolis.

Rebranded with Keanu Reeves as Klaatu and a modern but overdone and hokey environmentalist message to replace the original film's cleaver addressing of violence, politics and global catastrophe.

You can see the original trailer here, done via link since Apple doesn't allow direct embedding of their movie trailers, or if you do not mind a smaller sized video, you can watch the embeded version of the trailer from Youtube below:

Not using the hotel's open Wi-Fi connection :P

At Convergence, so far it has been a complete blast and it's only Friday. This is truly an active, extremely well ran party convention. Always I have seen more people dress up on a Thursday then at the huge Wizard World Comic Convention last Friday. Easily the best convention I have attended in many years and not even half way finished, it temps me to drop Anthrocon permanently to come back here on a regular basis if the schedules conflict.

Don't worry, collecting pictures to show everyone.

I hope everyone's weekend is going well and Happy Birthday America, the greatest nation on Earth and I have no problem saying that. See ya all later!

Since so many of my friends here are involved with IT in one capacity or another, you all may fine this pretty amusing and I would love to hear you opinions on it.

In Texas it is now required for computer-repair technicians to have an official private investigator license, thanks to a weird new law. To qualify for obtaining the license, one needs a degree in criminal justice or an equivalent three year apprenticeship.

Any computer repair shop who does not comply with this new law for their techs will either have to shut down or face the penalties, of up to $4000 in fines and possibly up to a year in jail time.

So do you think computer technicians will suddenly get paid more because of the extra required education? Or simply there will be less such people because the mediocre pay one usually gets isn't worth having to spend and work through a criminal justice degree program? Or perhaps people will simply send their computers to Oklahoma (or outsourced to Mexico D: ).