Prison inmates banned from playing Dungeons & Dragons

The inmates of a prison in Wisconsin have so far failed to mount a successful legal challenge against their being banned from playing Dungeons & Dragons. According to the article, the staff of the prison deemed Dungeons & Dragons inappropriate because "one player is denoted the Dungeon Master... [who] is tasked with giving directions to other players... [which] mimics the organization of a gang."

Seems pretty silly to me. The prison banning Dungeons & Dragons, that is. I just can't see how a game like this is going to encourage gang activity. If anything, Dungeons & Dragons might be quite a productive use of the inmates' free time, since it constantly engages skills such as creative thought and mathematics.

Or maybe the guards are simply afraid that the prisoners are going to use Dungeons & Dragons as a "gateway" to some legit black magick!

Worth noting again that Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, was a devout Christian. Bet he wouldn't have any problem with his game being used like this.

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Fifteen gadgets that were WAY ahead of their time

Think your iPhone or BlackBerry is the wave of the future? Feh! Behold the marvelous technology of 1913, represented by E.C. Hanson's "automobile wireless telephone". With his buggy outfitted with two telephone poles and various high-voltage insulators, Hanson could make calls from the road up to 35 miles away.

Technologizer has a fun lil' read up on their site about Hanson's "cell phone" and fourteen other innovations that were decades ahead of the curve. Like Thomas Edison's idea to print a 40,000 page book that would be only two inches thick, using ultra-thin metal plates instead of paper.

(Thankfully that one didn't see production. Lord knows that I have enough trouble with papercuts :-P )

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Pathetic!

I know of no other way to describe it when a person arrives at this blog via a Google search for, and I quote, "scarlett johansson seks".

(I hope the person found what they were looking for on this post that I made over three years ago.)

What kind of a world is this coming to when even "sex" is getting misspelled?!?

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Chris says that THE BOOK OF ELI should be seen by EVERYBODY professing to be Christian... and everyone else too!

(Proprietor's note: Before starting the review proper, I just gotta get this out of my system: The Book of Eli is the movie where Denzel Washington kicks the butt of local cult leader Johnny Robertson. Because Johnny Robertson is exactly the character that Gary Oldman is playing in this movie. I'm not the only one who's thinking this either. Okay, 'nuff with that. Back to the review...)

In some ways this is one of the harder movie reviews I've had to write, because The Book of Eli is a film that plays on two different levels and depending on where you're coming from it's either going to be just "pretty good" or "absolutely outstanding!"

Me? This was the second consecutive movie that I've seen with a post-apocalyptic setting. The first was The Road. Now, I loved The Road. But in terms of solid entertainment I thought that The Book of Eli was far better. And I will even say that as a story engendering thoughtfulness along with heaps of action, that I found The Book of Eli to be an even better film than Avatar.

Not only that: I would declare that The Book of Eli is the best R-rated Christian movie since The Passion of the Christ came out six years ago. But more about that later...

First I'm gonna talk about The Book of Eli as most people are probably approaching it and the way it's being billed: as an action flick. You can not think of a movie with Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman without considering the bloodfests and body counts (and there are plenty). People don't just die in pretty heinous ways in The Book of Eli: they're also left horribly wounded and with festering, gangrenous sores. This is the same type of world that The Road portrayed: with things like cannibalism run amok and a harsh deficit of goods left on the day after. But whereas we're never told what it was that destroyed civilization in The Road, it's clearly stated in The Book of Eli that this story takes place after a nuclear war punched a "hole in the sky". It's a wonderfully violent canvas and brother directors Albert and Allen Hughes play it to the hilt (mostly of Eli's very wicked knife).

Into this landscape strides Eli (Denzel Washington). He's a man on a mission: carrying something across the wasteland. The object in question happens to be a Bible: the last one known to exist. Seems that after the war a lot of people blamed the turmoil on religion, so Bibles and other sacred texts were rounded up and burned. Eli is "walking by faith" toward a destination even he isn't clear of, only that it's "west". But regardless of his own lack of understanding, he can and will kill to protect his charge.

Not long into the movie and Eli winds up in a ramshackle town (think Megaton from Fallout 3) run by obsessed bibliophile Carnegie (Gary Oldman). In exchange for providing clean water and other necessities of life, Carnegie has his people out looking for books. Problem is, by this point in history there is barely anyone left who's old enough to know how to read. Carnegie's gang of bikers keeps bringing him trash like The Da Vinci Code when what he really wants is... yup, you guessed it... a copy of the Bible. In due time Carnegie discovers that Eli – who only came to town because he needed a recharge of his iPod's battery (don't laugh, it makes sense) – is in possession of that what he seeks most, and the chase is on.

If I could possibly do it, I would gladly buy a ticket for every preacher, pastor and evangelist in America to see The Book of Eli while it's playing in theaters. And if they didn’t want to see it, I would tie them to the seat and force them to watch it like that that guy in A Clockwork Orange played by Malcolm McDowell (who also appears in The Book of Eli). As a follower of Christ, what I appreciated most about this movie is that better than any other film that I can think of, The Book of Eli is a narrative examination of the Holy Bible and how those who call themselves "Christian" invariably choose to either understand it or exploit it.

Two men. Each with their own desire for the Bible. For Carnegie, it's all about the power. He lusts for the Bible because within its pages he knows there are words to drive and motivate his people toward something bigger and mightier than what he has now. Out of all the hundreds in his town, Carnegie is the only one who can read the printed word. Were he to acquire the Bible, it will be entirely at his discretion what his people will hear from within it. They will cling upon his every spoken utterance because no doubt they will believe that he has been chosen of God. That just as Carnegie brings them water to drink, so too will he and he alone bring them the water of the Word.

Sounds like damn too many people in our real world, doesn't it?

And then there is Eli. The one who has the Bible. He has read from its pages each day for more than thirty years. Of all the people left in what was once the world, Eli is perhaps the only one who begins each meal with a prayer. That alone screams volumes about the fundamental difference between Carnegie and Eli. Oh, Carnegie certainly knows what a mealtime prayer of thankfulness is... but he doesn't care for what it signifies. Carnegie is the man who has and wants more, while Eli is thankful for what meager blessings he has been given. Eli is not motivated by the power he carries toward any selfish end, but that doesn't mean he can't understand its true potential. He knows that what he carries is not meant for one person, but for all people.

I'll let you decide in the end which one comes out the better. But while watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of the words of Jesus as recorded in Luke 8:18...

"...Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."

That is the ultimate parable of The Book of Eli, in my mind. That one can choose to cling as hard as one can to worldly power and affluence. Or one can choose to live "not by sight but by faith". One may lead to comfort, but it is only for a season. The one who can overcome the ways of the world and can even sacrifice self stands to gain something far greater...

...and no amount of claiming the Bible can change any of that. One can choose to wield the Word of God as a weapon, or one can choose to use the Word of God for His sake.

The references to scripture comes fast and hard in The Book of Eli, but never does the film seem to demand having a Bible or concordance handy in order to appreciate it. I'm not sure what kind of background scribe Gary Whitta is coming from, but the dude has crafted a story that, in my mind anyway, stands as an amazing testimony of what Paul wrote about in 1st Corinthians 9:22: "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."

That's what The Book of Eli represents to me: a witness for God in a language that a lot of people will enjoy being tuned into as opposed to listening to tired old sermons or being accosted on the street or at their own homes by "the faithful". It's a very Christian movie with a bad-ass 'tude... and I can't really see anything necessarily wrong with that.

Mila Kunis turns in a great performance as Solara, the daughter of Carnegie's blind wife Claudia (played by Jennifer Beals). Also look for Tom Waits, Ray Stevenson (who won wide acclaim for his portrayal of Titus Pullo in HBO's Rome) and a particularly eccentric couple played by Frances de la Tour and Michael Gambon (who is most recently known for playing Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies). In addition to the performances, I also have to praise the gorgeous cinematography of Don Burgess (who, I am told, shot The Book of Eli with the RED ONE digital camera). Atticus Ross composed a fine score for the film: I'm gonna be looking for it at the local big-box entertainment store or on iTunes.

I'll give The Book of Eli my highest recommendation for a film. There's something here for just about everyone, including a jaw-dropper of a plot twist that I dare not intimate about at all. Can't wait to buy this on Blu-ray when it comes out!

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Finale of Marco van Bergen's new film NORMALSVILLE

Fellow filmmaker and good friend of this blog Marco van Bergen want's y'all to know that he's put the final scene of his new film Normalsville up for your viewing pleasure. Here 'tis!

For more of the wonderfully wacked work of Marco and his crew, visit the website of Route 64 Vintage!

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High-class Hobbit hole

This subterranean house in Vals, Switzerland is just the sort of place that Bilbo Baggins would have loved had he been able to blow his loot on such conveniences as digital satellite television and outside lights...

The house, designed by SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects, includes "all the facilities a common house has, such as a guest room, an entertainment area, but also 'specialized' interiors like an underground pathway. The entrance is a wide oval opening that you are driven to by some traditional stairs made in stone. Large windows make it noticeable and draw attention to the inside décors- that is when the people living there are up for some company."

Dig down here for more photos of this amazing house!

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Practical fusion energy takes step forward with levitaging magnet

Previous attempts at harnessing the power of fusion reactions have involved containing plasma within a magnetic bottle. Now comes word of a radical new approach thunked-up by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The new method takes a massive levitating magnet and causing the plasma to flow around it.

If further experiments continue to bear good results, it could prove to be a much-needed breakthrough in the longstanding effort to produce cheap, clean fusion energy.

From the article...

A new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets has yielded its first significant results. The findings confirm that its unique approach has some potential to be developed as a new way of creating a power-producing plant based on nuclear fusion — the process that generates the sun's prodigious output of energy.

Fusion has been a cherished goal of physicists and energy researchers for more than 50 years. That's because it offers the possibility of nearly endless supplies of energy with no carbon emissions and far less radioactive waste than that produced by today's nuclear plants, which are based on fission, the splitting of atoms (the opposite of fusion, which involves fusing two atoms together). But developing a fusion reactor that produces a net output of energy has proved to be more challenging than initially thought.

The new results come from an experimental device on the MIT campus, inspired by observations from space made by satellites. Called the Levitated Dipole Experiment, or LDX, a joint project of MIT and Columbia University, it uses a half-ton donut-shaped magnet about the size and shape of a large truck tire, made of superconducting wire coiled inside a stainless steel vessel. This magnet is suspended by a powerful electromagnetic field, and is used to control the motion of the 10-million-degree-hot electrically charged gas, or plasma, contained within its 16-foot-diameter outer chamber.

The results, published this week in the journal Nature Physics, confirm the counter-intuitive prediction that inside the device's magnetic chamber, random turbulence causes the plasma to become more densely concentrated — a crucial step to getting atoms to fuse together — instead of becoming more spread out, as usually happens with turbulence. This "turbulent pinching" of the plasma has been observed in the way plasmas in space interact with the Earth's and Jupiter's magnetic fields, but has never before been recreated in the laboratory.

Most experiments in fusion around the world use one of two methods: tokamaks, which use a collection of coiled magnets surrounding a donut-shaped chamber to confine the plasma, or inertial fusion, using high-powered lasers to blast a tiny pellet of fuel at the device's center. But LDX takes a different approach. "It's the first experiment of its kind," says MIT senior scientist Jay Kesner, MIT's physics research group leader for LDX, who co-directs the project with Michael E. Mauel, professor of applied physics at Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The results of the experiment show that this approach "could produce an alternative path to fusion," Kesner says, though more research will be needed to determine whether it would be practical. For example, though the researchers have measured the plasma's high density, new equipment still needs to be installed to measure its temperature, and ultimately a much larger version would have to be built and tested.

Kesner cautions that the kind of fuel cycle planned for other types of fusion reactors such as tokamaks, which use a mixture of two forms of "heavy" hydrogen called deuterium and tritium, should be easier to achieve and will likely be the first to go into operation. The deuterium-deuterium fusion planned for devices based on the LDX design, if they ever become practical, would likely make this "a second-generation approach," he says.

When operating, the huge LDX magnet is supported by the magnetic field from an electromagnet overhead, which is controlled continuously by a computer based on precision monitoring of its position using eight laser beams and detectors. The position of the half-ton magnet, which carries a current of one million amperes (compared to a typical home's total capacity of 200 amperes) can be maintained this way to within half a millimeter. A cone-shaped support with springs is positioned under the magnet to catch it safely if anything goes wrong with the control system.

Levitation is crucial because the magnetic field used to confine the plasma would be disturbed by any objects in its way, such as any supports used to hold the magnet in place. In the experimental runs, they recreated the same conditions with and without the support system in place, and confirmed that the confinement of the plasma was dramatically increased in the levitated mode, with the supports removed. With the magnet levitated, the central peak of plasma density developed within a few hundredths of a second, and closely resembled those observed in planetary magnetospheres (such as the magnetic fields surrounding Earth and Jupiter).

This will be a helluva awesome development, folks. Fusion is darn nearly the most ideal form of energy that's possible for mass power needs. And wouldn't it be fun to have a real Mr. Fusion producing electricity for our homes? :-)

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A thought on creationism versus evolution...

Creationism cannot explain mutation, but evolution cannot explain flatulence.

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Hey, Congressman Brad Miller: IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY TO GIVE!!!

Look folks: I, for one, do want to see the proposed McMichael Civic Center for Wentworth (the county seat of Rockingham County, North Carolina) become a reality. As an active member of the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County and participant in several past productions, I can certainly vouch that a dedicated stage and associated facilities will absolutely be appreciated, for reasons too numerous to list.

But what Brad Miller, our representative in Congress, is doing to "help" make that happen is horribly wrong.

Miller has made a House Appropriations Request for this fiscal year that would allocate more than two and a half million dollars for the McMichael Civic Center. Here's a link to the PDF file of the request. I also took the liberty of converting it into a JPEG...

Can anyone tell me where in this request has Rep. Miller pointed to the place in the Constitution that allows for this sort of expenditure from the public treasury? 'Cuz I sure as hell can't find it.

Word on the street is that Brad Miller himself will be in Rockingham County in a few weeks to announce this misappropriation in person. I'll let you decide, friends and neighbors, if this smacks too much of election year pork-barrelin'.

Well, I for one believe that the people of this county should tell our congress-critter to take the money back to Washington... 'cuz we can and should be able to fund the McMichael Civic Center on our own! Yeah it might take a bit longer to see it come to fruition. But we'll be able to say that we did it ourselves. And that will do a helluva lot more good about this county's image and commercial viability than if we had sucked up to the tit that Miller is offering.

Congressman Brad Miller, heed the wisdom that Davey Crockett learned from Horatio Bunce: It is NOT yours to give!!

(Special thanks to Jeffrey Sykes for the heads-up.)

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See Dawn Swartz channel Gollum in BEN PICKLE!

I've written about Dawn Swartz a few times before on this blog: about how she's a very sweet friend and terrific actress! She had one of the leads in our film Schrodinger's Bedroom a few years ago, and recently she was seen briefly alongside Richard Gere in Nights in Rodanthe.

But look at Dawn now, in this screen cap from the short film Ben Pickle...

Dawn, girl... what did they do to you?! It's like Rick Baker and WETA teamed up to do the makeup on this movie.

Okay, I've got to see Ben Pickle now. I've also got a strange pic of Dawn with glowing eyes. This kind of wild material is screaming for context of some sort :-)

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My commentary on Obama's first full year in the White House

We've gone from eight years of a drunk at the controls, to one year (and counting) of the plane on autopilot.

I'm not seeing how one is any better than the other.

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James Oldfield is FULL of crap tonight!

How long has it been since I've posted about those lunatics from the local "Church of Christ" cult? Awhile, at least.

Time to have some fun with them again...

Earlier tonight it was Micah Robertson talking about satanic sex (bear in mind that this is the same young man who recently went on a weeks-long spate obsessing about Abraham's libido) and Mark McMinnis, who for once didn't do his whiny act about "...those Baptists made me lose my job in Danville schools!"

But it was the 9 p.m. show with James Oldfield that was so rife with hypocrisy that I literally laughed out loud too many times to count.

James Oldfield - the second banana and second cousin of cult leader Johnny Robertson - ranted for the entire hour about... some caller last week, apparently... who was insisting that Jesus had to be referred to by a specific name in order to be saved. Oldfield actually condemned this man's insistence upon ritualistic salvation demanding the following "right" methods as being "twisted" and perverted.

For James Oldfield or anyone from this cult to damn anyone for believing in doing a certain thing to be saved... is like King Kong condemning Curious George for being a monkey.

James Oldfield, Johnny Robertson, Mark McMinnis, and Robertson the Lesser don't do anything BUT damn EVERYONE ELSE for not following Christ as "they" think is proper. Funny thing: for all the airtime they have on WGSR, they have never done anything to show that they follow Christ. They can't even prove that they're in a real church anyway: they spend all their time knocking others.

Oldfield and his droogs don't want salvation by grace. They want salvation by religion: their religion. They are enslaved to their own works and their fallen nature demands that they enslave others even more cruelly.

It was almost hilarious to behold. But I was also reminded of what another James - namely James, the brother of our Lord - would have to say about James Oldfield of the Eden Church of Christ...

"...he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

-- James 1:8

'Course, that could be said of everyone in the evil cult that is Johnny Robertson's "Church of Christ".

(And why is Johnny condemning Martinsville cable channel BTW when he himself is doing business with a s***** d******? B******* perhaps?)

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The Supreme Court overturned parts of McCain-Feingold today

Read about it here.

Y'know, I've always thought that McCain-Feingold was horrible, horrible legislation...

...but I'm also rather troubled by the idea that corporations, labor unions etc. as artificial organisms en masse should have the same rights as actual, living citizens.

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TSA screener plants white powder on passenger as a "joke"

My loathing for the Transportation Security Administration just soared to new depths.

The story from Philly.com...

In the tense new world of air travel, we're stripped of shoes, told not to take too much shampoo on board, frowned on if we crack a smile.

The last thing we expect is a joke from a Transportation Security Administration screener - particularly one this stupid.

Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.

She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.

What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on - the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: "Where did you get it?"

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn't looking.

She'd left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.

Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn't.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.

Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.

Plenty more of the article at the link above.

This TSA screener is a total bastard. I cannot put it any plainer than that. And there are far too many of them in the TSA's employ.

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"Chuck Norris" was Facebook master password

And that's just for starters, dear readers! The Rumpus.net has an interview with a Facebook employee (whose identity is withheld to safeguard continued employment) about the real state of privacy on the popular social site. Bottom line: if you write something on Facebook, it's always gonna be there for Facebook employees to find (and even though the company has a policy about intruding on users' accounts, it's apparently rarely followed). And at one time the password that let any Facebook staffer log into any account was "Chuck Norris".

(Feel free to post the inevitable Chuck Norris jokes in the comments.)

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Aurochs: It's what's for dinner! (Maybe...)

The aurochs - a species of wild cattle a little less than the size of an elephant and the ancestor of modern breeding cattle - has been extinct since 1624.

And now a group of Italian scientists are planning to "breed back" the aurochs.

I wonder how well-done aurochs tastes with A1 Steak Sauce.

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Senate election in Massachusetts cries out for 17th Amendment repeal

I don't live in Massachusetts so yesterday's special election that saw Scott Brown win the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy didn't hold any interest for me. But I'd be deaf and blind not to know about the ridiculous amount of passion that's built up over this election in the past few weeks and months.

Some are saying that Brown won because "the independents are angry". Which in my mind begs the question: was Ted Kennedy only winning those unconscionably numerous terms of office because he benefited from straight-ticket voting: something that, to the best of my knowledge, wasn't an option in yesterday's election? Seems to me that's an insult to ol' Teddy's memory: as if openly admitting that he couldn't win election on his own merit but rather had to ride the coattails of the Democrat Party.

I've never been in favor of allowing straight-ticket voting anyway. If you're going to the polls to cast a ballot, you should be compelled to think long and hard about who exactly you're voting for. Voting is a right, but it's one bought with too much precious blood to be an overly convenient one.

Anyhoo, the real reason why I'm not really feelin' anything one way or the other about this election is because in the saner world of another time, this election wouldn't have happened and Ted Kennedy likely would never have gotten close to a Senate seat anyway. Because before the Seventeenth Amendment was passed, senators were elected by the state legislatures! The Founders meant for the House to represent the people and for the Senate to represent the states. It's the way it was until 1912 when the Seventeenth was ratified and senators were elected by popular vote.

Sure, there were problems with the previous method of electing senators. But you tell me: could it possibly have been any worse than the dirty, corrupt slugfest that modern Senate campaigns have become?

Consider this also: would something like "health care reform" stand even a remote chance of becoming an inssue in a Senate made up of members who were sent their by their respective states, rather than be installed (for lack of a better word) by political parties?

The Seventeenth Amendment has proven to be a failure more spectacular than Prohibition. It should be repealed and the election of senators returned to the individual state legislatures.

I wish Scott Brown all the best as he begins serving the people of Massachusetts in the United States Senate. But the fact of the matter remains: those of his caliber deserve a more dignified way of coming to the Senate.

And we the people deserve that as well.

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