HIV-positive muppets?

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Aside from the many, many obvious jokes than can be made about this (and, admittedly, I could come up with quite a few without even trying), I think this may be one of the coolest news reports I’ve read in a while. According to an AP story on Yahoo! News, “The first HIV-positive Muppet will soon join the cast of ‘Sesame Street’ in South Africa to educate children about the deadly virus that infects more than 10 percent of the country.”

The report goes on to say that “…the Muppet will associate freely with the show’s other characters as a way to fight stereotypes and dispel myths about people living with the virus, said Yvonne Kgame of the South African Broadcasting Corp., which airs the program.”

I could easily see this as being one of the best and most effective ways to get some real HIV education out to children — and I can also, unfortunately, fairly easily assume that there is absolutely no way this would ever happen in the US. Can you imagine the uproar that would hit if news of this happening on Sesame Street in the US? Too bad, too — I think this is a great step.

Creepy, and very interesting

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A series of quotes from something I just watched:

History has shown us that strength may be useless in the face of terrorism…

These aren’t people we’re dealing with here. They’re animals. Fanatics, who kill without remorse or conscience…who think nothing of murdering innocent people.

I guess the event that really opened my eyes took place only a few days after my arrival. A terrorist bomb destroyed a shuttlebus…sixty school children. There were no survivors. [They] claimed it was a mistake. That their intended target was a police transport. As if that made everything all right. That day I vowed to put an end to terrorism…. And I will.

Don’t you know? A dead martyr’s worth ten posturing leaders.

That shuttlebus I told you about…the bomb was set by a teenager. And in a world where children blow up children…everyone’s a threat.

“…the difference between a general and terrorist is only the difference between winners and losers. You win, you’re called a general. You lose….”
“You are killing innocent people! Can’t you see the immorality of what you’re doing? Or have you killed so often, you’ve become blind to it?”
“How much innocent blood has been spilled for the cause of freedom in [your] history…? How many good and noble societies have bombed civilians in war? Wiped out whole cities. And now that you enjoy the comfort that has come from their battles, their killing, you frown on my immorality? …I am willing to die for my freedom. And, in the finest tradition of your own [history], I’m willing to kill for it too.”

“…it appears that terrorism is an effective way to promote political change.”
“I have never subscribed to the theory that political power flows from the barrel of a gun….”
“In most instances, you would be correct. But there are numerous examples where it was successful…. Then, would it be accurate to say that terrorism is acceptable when the options for peaceful settlement have been foreclosed?”
“…we cannot condone violence.”
“Even in response to violence?”
“These are questions that [we have] been struggling with since creation.”

“They’re mad.”
“I don’t know any more. The difference between a madman and a committed man willing to die for a cause…it’s begun to blur….”

…there’s a hint of moral cowardice in your dealings…. You do business with a government that’s crushing us. And then you say you aren’t involved. But of course you are. You just don’t want to get dirty.

“You didn’t have to kill him.”
“As a prisoner he would have been a focus for violence as his followers tried to free him. Now, he’s a martyr, but the death toll may be lower — at least in the short term. An imperfect solution for an imperfect world.”

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All they wanted was a ride

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Okay, here’s a bizarre little situation — three women buy a beer for a guy they meet in exchange for a ride where they need to go, and end up trapped in the car during a wild police chase!

The women later told detectives they didn’t know the car was stolen and had never met the driver before. They said they had bought him a beer because he promised to give them a ride to the White Center area. They said that when the deputy started following him, Snow told them he had warrants out for his arrest, that the car was stolen, ‘and that he wasn’t going back to jail,’ the documents state.

I think I’ll stick to walking and taking the bus.

New element discovered

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The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major U.S. research university. The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with.

According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, and universities. It can usually be found in the newest, best appointed, and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.

(Source unknown)

Rocky Horror what???

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Here’s a fairly disturbing idea — celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show by remaking it as a made-for-TV movie, keeping the original music and lyrics, but updating it to a more modern setting.

Okay, so maybe there’s a small chance it could work — but I don’t think i’m too optimistic about that. I do, however, like some of the ideas on casting that Rebecca Blood proposed.

Check out my (messy) apartment!

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This is too cool! I was playing around at work with printing out some of the panoramic shots I’d clumsily put together using Photoshop, and one of the guys I work with pointed me to a really cool little PC program called Panorama Factory. After taking a series of shots, you feed them into the program, and it does all the work of warping and assembling the pictures into a finished panorama!

The coolest thing about this program, though, is that if you have a full 360-degree set of shots, it can create a Quicktime VR movie file! QtVR files allow you to click and drag around a photograph as if you were standing at the point where the photo was taken — they can be pretty cool to play with. So, on that note, check the rest of this post for a QtVR file I just made of my apartment! It’s a little messy, but that’s about the norm — it’s not too bad, or I wouldn’t put this up! You will, of course, need QuickTime installed on your system to view the file. You’ll also want to give it a moment to load if you’re on a dial-up modem, it’s a 1.1Mb file, so won’t be super-quick.

Mulholland Drive

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Okay — so I rented the latest effort from David Lynch, Mulholland Drive. I was a little unsure about it, since the last new Lynch film I’d seen was Lost Highway, which I could not get into at all, and chalked up as two hours of my life that I wouldn’t get back.

After watching Mulholland Drive…

…I give up on David Lynch. Now I need four hours of my life back from him, instead of just two.

Maybe if I got it, I’d know if it was good or not — but Lynch is just too wierd, even for me.

Scooby-Doo

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I just got back from seeing Scooby-Doo. It was a mildly entertaining way to waste a couple hours when I had nothing to do, but I can’t really say much more than that about it.

Plotwise — well, it’s Scooby-Doo — not exactly a subject known for its in-depth plots. The effects were passable, but barely. I was a little surprised at some of the more adult-aimed humor that was tossed in — enough that I got a giggle (or at least a smirk) from time to time, but not enough that most parents would have problems taking their kids to see it.

I can say that while most of the cast didn’t really impress me, I was really surprised with Matthew Lillard as Shaggy — he became Shaggy just as much as I thought Hugh Jackman did as Wolverine in X-Men.

All in all — well, a rental if you’re curious, but I can’t give it much more than that.