wanted trailer

The trailer for the Mark Millar comic ‘Wanted’ is online here on yahoo … It’s a pity that Yahoo’s video player is so crap - I still haven’t been able to watch the damn thing properly.. Anyway,the trailer itself looks pretty good, even if its a bit Angelina heavy. Also, I’m not so sure about the change to the story that seems to make them ‘a pack of assassins controling the world system’ rather than them just being supervillians - mainly becuase you can already see how there will be a ‘good guy wins’ ending from the trailer. But maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong. And it does look like it’ll be a pretty entertaining movie.

This would be funnier if people didn’t actually believe it…

From the BBC; ‘His latest book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, interprets the Bible to predict that Russian and Arab armies will invade Israel and be destroyed by God.This will set up a confrontation over Israel between China and the West, led by the anti-Christ, who will be the head of the European Union’.

Who has the power?

Pretty good looking leaked ‘promo’ for a He-Man movie.. Interesting stuff

An Ethical Question:

‘Referring to Kantian ethics - Is it right or wrong to sell parts of your body/organs for financial (or equivalent) reward?’

Anyone have any Ideas where I can get good articles on this? Proving a bit difficult atm..

Good’ol racial profiling…

I love the way the minister only refers to the fact that ”I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress” and not the fact that it’s rather obvious that they detained him solely because he was a Muslim

Deadnauts

Enjoyable science-fiction short story with a really claustrophobic atmosphere by Ted Kosmatka. From the story itself:

The next step is a difficult thing to do if you are thinking about it. So I don’t. I recline to 45 degrees. I pull the lid down, and the screens come to life, lighting the darkness. I take a deep breath. And here it catches me, the weight of what I’m doing. It is always the same, each time. We are all dead in cryo, and only waking makes it not so. And doing this, putting my hand on the pad, is the same as killing myself. Again and again. I have done it so many times now. I am a mass murderer of myself

Though I have to admit I nearly enjoy this line from the author at the end as much as the story itself;

The seed of this story formed near the end of a sleep-deprived 88-hour workweek at US Steel. After the third midnights-to-days double shift, I couldn’t do math anymore. I couldn’t remember my computer passwords. There is a peculiar kind of terror in knowing that your job is stripping your mind away one little piece at a time

I know I haven’t been posting much lately…

And at the moment I wish I could apply ratbert’s mantra;

the Jihad in Pakistan;

Very good (and extremely contemporary) article on recent events in Pakistan from Newsweek - certainly I’m not sure that the Taliban and its supporters operate quite as openly as the article suggests but it’s still worth a read

Sorry I haven’t been posting lately - here’s a funny webcomic

Did the Isreali’s sink a U.S destroyer in 1967?

I’ve never heard this story before but it seems almost too ‘insane’ to be true. Supposedly Israel in the 1967 war attacked a United States navy destroyer deliberately - the USS Liberty, then got the U.S Senate to cover it up. The article (which is too short and very lacking on detail) is here and here is a quote from the passage of great interest (to me anyway);

The evidence, from intercepted communications as well as testimony, of Israeli deliberate intent is unimpeachable, even though the Israelis continue to portray it as just a terrible mistake.

Crewdson refers to U.S. Navy Capt. Ward Boston, who was the Navy lawyer appointed as senior counsel to Adm. Isaac C. Kidd, named by Adm. John S. McCain to “inquire into all the facts and circumstances.” (Yes, the father of presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain.)

The fact that they were given only one week to gather evidence and were forbidden to contact the Israelis screams out “coverup.”

Capt. Boston, now 84, signed a formal declaration on Jan. 8, 2004, in which he described himself as “outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity.’” Boston continued:

“The evidence was clear. Both Adm. Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack … was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew … Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded — a war crime … I know from personal conversations I had with Adm. Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”