It was bad enough that British school teacher was sentenced to 15 days in jail in Sudan for naming a stuffed bear ‘Muhammad’. Now, an angry mob is demanding she be executed by firing squad for insulting Islam.

Sweet bloody Hell.

Yes, right now actual human beings are marching through the streets chanting things like “Kill her, kill her by firing squad” and “No tolerance: Execution”. I find the last one particularly interesting, because so far as I know, whether you’re reading the Bible, the Torah, or the Qu’ran, tolerance seems to be a pretty big part of the story.

This is disgusting. Disgusting on an epic scale. Like huge, godzilla-sized disgusting. I’d be pretty ashamed to be associated with anything that can lead to such a massive freakout over something so profoundly stupid.

Oh, and while we’re at it, Sudan…um, Darfur? Can you stop supporting genocide? Thanks.

Apparently, this woman deserves to die for naming a bear after a dead dude.

Zoologists have announced a surprising discovery: male Topi Antelopes literally have to fend off advances from aggressive female suitors.

Must be tough. Said Dr. Jakob Bro-Jorgensen of the Zoological Society of London:

“Some pushy females were so aggressive in their pursuit of the male that he actually had physically to attack them to rebuff their advances.”

This, in case you were wondering, is the animal equivalent of ‘beating them off with a stick”. The Topi are also incredibly promiscuous, mating with as many as 36 partners in a single day. The only consolation is that Topi females are only fertile for 24 hours every year.

You’ve got to respect Mother Nature for her bitter sense of irony. Nothing like fulfilling the adolescent fantasy of every single male on earth in another species, so we can watch from a distance and get progressively more irritated.

Lucky bastard.

Gotta love those wacky zealots. Always good for a laugh and a handful of civil rights violations.

Let me say this right off: I am not a religious man. Quite the opposite in fact. But I don’t call myself an ‘atheist’. My good friend and collaborator MN has made the excellent point that the word ‘atheism’ implies that ‘theism’- or religious belief- is somehow mankind’s natural state. Which I don’t believe is true. So, while we hunt around for a new word, I’ll also say this: I respect people with genuine religious beliefs. It ain’t my bag, but if it works for you, then awesome. But my sympathy for the religious runs out the second they a) attempt to impose their beliefs on me, or b) use religion as an excuse to trammel on the rights of others.

Fortunately, today’s headlines have furnished me with two excellent examples. In Sudan, a female British schoolteacher is facing 40 lashes for allowing her students to name a stuffed bear ‘Muhammad’. Apparently this contravenes some kind of ‘religious law’. Now that’s just medieval. In the first place, the charge is patently ridiculous. The teacher didn’t intend to insult Islam. It was part of an innocent class project. But the law is totally dogmatic, and an insult is an insult. To a dude who died like 1400 years ago. Who maybe wouldn’t have minded. The point is, I should be able to call a bear “Jesubuddhashivmohweh” if I want, and not worry about some religious sociopath coming to whip me. Furthermore, are we actually still whipping people? Is that something that makes any goddamned (so to speak) sense at all? You might as well move into a cave. There’s no ‘god’ in a punishment like that. That’s just human barbarism, full stop.

Example the second: the Turkish government is considering charging the publisher of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion for attacking ’sacred values’. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised. You can also go to jail in Turkey for insulting ‘Turkishness’. Remember when crimes were based on actual events, not weird abstractions? I didn’t really like Dawkins’ book…I think there are more elegant ways to refute religion than being a total jerk about it. But still, I’d say freedom of speech is pretty essential to a, you know, tolerably functional society. So Dawkins should be allowed to be a jerk, and his publisher should be allowed to spread his jerkiness.

Also, if our prophets are so powerful, can’t we let them fight their own battles? Let people name bears after them. And if they don’t like it, and as I understand the morality-for-reward system of modern theology, they will have plenty of opportunity to sort it out. If I were religious, and this is just me talking, I’d rather believe in a deity that can stick up for itself.

Of course, all of this takes place against a wondrous tapestry of religious fundamentalists ruling the USA, women being whipped in Saudia Arabia for being raped, and any number of religious conflicts raging across the globe. So, yeah. Good game, religion. You’re doing a bang-up job out there.

Aaaaah! Blasphemy! Cuddly, innocent blasphemy!

Ah, sweet television. You occasionally go off the rails, and then come roaring back.

If you’re like me, and I’ll assume you are because I’m a raving narcissist, then you liked the show Futurama. Loved it, really. And you were really po’d when it went off the air. Well, fear not, nebulous imagined extension of my personality to which I’ve addressed this post: it’s coming back!

The fabled fifth season will be packaged as DVD ‘features’, which will then be subdivided into a full-season run on Comedy Central. And, funnily enough, the first DVD is in store today. Rejoice!

And in the immortal words of Philip J. Fry:

“I’m never gonna get used to the 31st century. Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? Admiral Crunch?”

Through some strange confluence of circumstances, I’ve spent a lot of time  thinking about quantum theory over the past few weeks. Not in any great depth, mind you, because to understand QT you need to be some kind of super freaky math ninja. Nevertheless, the more mind-bending aspects of the theory have been occupying my mind late, particularly the idea of the ‘multiverse’. Since subatomic particles can be in multiple places at once, all quantum possibilities exist simultaneously. The universe is in fact akin to a gigantic stack of photographs depicting all possibilities at once. Only when we measure a particle do we collapse the stack into a single perspective. But the realities implied by the other ‘photographs’ continue on in distinct universes. So, for example, there is a universe out there where I still have hair, or where Britney Spears is a librarian in Mayor’s Income, Tennessee.

Or so the theory goes.

The fellah that came up the original idea of the multivers was named Hugh Everett. Not only was Everett a fairly brilliant thinker, but he was also the father of Mark Oliver Everett- better known as ‘E’, lead singer and songwriter of one of my favourite bands, The Eels. Recently, Everett the Younger made a documentary with BBC4 about his father. Pretty interesting stuff right there. But during the filming something really exceptional happened- a box of lost audio tapes were discovered in Mark’s basement. On them, Hugh Everett discusses the inspirations for his ‘Many World’s Interpretation’ (MWI) of quantum theory.

Everett speaks with Charles Misner, a physics professor at the University of Maryland.  He describes how he came up with his theory in response to what he viewed as the more ridiculous aspects of quantum mechanics. And in the background, you can actually hear Mark playing his childhood drum set. He also describes how his doctoral supervisor refused to pass his thesis on to then-guru Nils Bohr. In fact, Everett’s conclusions were so alarmingly counter-intuitive that they were largely ignored. Until 1977 anyway, when MWI has a mini-renaissance. Of course, in another universe, Everett’s ideas were accepted right away. But we won’t dwell on that, because it makes my brain hurt.

All in all, it’s a fascinating look into a incredible and controversial theory, a point of departure from the prevailing wisdom that continues to fascinate physicists and science fiction writers alike. Perhaps the newly unearthed tapes will help Everett finally get his due.

Mark Oliver Everett

It’s Friday. I’m tired. So I’m going to put up a little eye candy.

I stumbled across this over on boing boing: an old-style pin-up calendar that lampoons George Bush’s many corporate masters with scantily clad women. Hurray!

From the creators:

“I’m a burlesque performer in NYC and me and a bunch of the girls and NYC photographer Burke Heffner created the calendar ‘The Lovely Mistresses of George W. Bush.’ It’s a beautiful, vintage styled pinup calendar. Each girl represents a special interest group or corporation that has profited from Bush being in power. The calendar is topical, environmentally friendly, and 25% of the profits are going to watchdog organizations that monitor corporate influence over our government.”

Sounds good to me. And the fact that she’s smoking hot doesn’t hurt either.

This is most SFW pic I could find.

Wizard Magazine has just published its list of the 50 greatest fictional weapons of all time. From the site:

Imagine a world without lightsabers—where, instead, every big Star Wars finale consists of a 10-minute slap fight. Thank the maker we’ll never have to witness such a spectacle, because magical and impossibly high-tech weapons are staples of nearly all of our favorite entertainments! To pick just the 50 best, we spent weeks whittling down a massive list of our favorite pain-inflicting instruments of all time—from magic swords to laser guns to pointy balls. To make this list, however, there were a few rules: The weapon must be wieldable (that means the Death Star didn’t make the cut) and it can’t be something you can just run out and buy.

After a quick review, the list seems pretty solid. Lightsabers, good. Plasma Grenades, good. The Spread Gun from Contra, even better. But I was a bit flummoxed by their choice for #1: The Green Lantern’s ring.

Wha..?  Seriously? But I have to admit, they made a pretty good case:

Feared by those who live in shadow…respected across the universe by those who live in the light…really cool even to morally on-the-fence types… The Power Ring of the Green Lantern Corps is the greatest fantasy weapon of all time! It provides you a uniform and any energy construct your mind can possibly imagine, limited only by your willpower. Lonely? You can even talk to it because it’s like OnStar for your finger. You have to charge it every so often, but that’s of little consequence—we’re ready to take the oath, swear off yellow forever and slip this baby on.

Bravo, Wizard. Bravo. But I still think lightsabers are cooler.

Look out…Ring Power!