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God cut from Dark Materials film

The director and screenwriter of the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is to remove references to God and the church in the movie.

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“You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bush’s America,”

Uh, right. And the same result wouldn’t have come about if Kerry were President. Sorry, I don’t buy it. Making a movie of this series of books (I want those hours of my life back, Pullman!) would be difficult under any circumstances, and the administration in the White House would be pretty low on the list of issues. First, despite Mr. Pullman’s statements to the contrary, this series of books is a stinging attack on the Church. Mr. Pullman obviously has some issues with the Church, and wrote about it. He’s not unique in that, and I hardly think he deserves to be held up as The Neo-oppressed.

The books themselves trade heavily in Church mysticism and elements of Gaia-based religions. Guess which one is always right and ends up solving the problems in the book? Making this movie is difficult because the themes are huge (religion as a war), the characters are complex to visualize (lots of CG) and the size of the audience is inversely related to how faithful you are to the story.

So, cheers to the BBC for biting on the beginning of what is sure to be a years-long PR campaign to make “His Dark Materials” a watered-down blockbuster version of what were mediocre books.

Link

The main argument from religious circles to prevent stem-call research is that you have to kill an embryo in order to harvest the stem cells. Apparently, the Catholic Church has defined a point at which the death of an embryo is actually the death of a whole person.

William Hurlbut, “an earnest young member of the [President’s Council on Bioethics] conservative wing”, has come up with a novel, if not creepy solution: harvest the cells before they become an embryo.

As Hurlbut puts it in his presentation paper, “Incompletely constituted or severed from the whole, subsystems with partial trajectories of development may temporarily proceed forward with a certain biological momentum.” In other words, the parts of an embryo—or the parts that normally would become an embryo—might produce stem cells, even if, to avoid the moral problem, we kept these parts incomplete or severed.

Basically, he wants to turn off a gene that tells the cells “you become an embryo”. The cells continue to develop, eventually producing the desired stem cells, but never become a defined organism. Of course, not just stem cells form. Other things, called “organ primordia” also form. That’s limb and organ “primordia”, “a ball of tissue, grown inside some poor creature, full of bits and pieces of what would have been a body.” Definitely high on the shiver scale.

I think it’s a brilliant solution, if it works. I have little confidence that it will ever be a long-term, widely-used technique. While conservatives have a high tolerance for activities that aren’t covered by their beliefs, they also have squeamish stomachs. All it will take is someone posting picture of “organ primordia” on a high-profile religious website and opinions will turn in a hurry.

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Krista Watson, formerly Krista Kotlarz, of Rockford, and also wife of the late Barton Watson, is under investigation for running the Ponzi scheme known as CyberNET (or Cyberco). She may not be charged for months, but you can bet that, when they find her, she’ll get the punishment due to Barton.

Wow, someone from Rockford who thought they deserved everything. There’s a shocker.

Link (Previous entry)

Someone posted this to the HATT Yahoo group today; Nvu, an open-source WYSIWYG HTML editor with an integrated CSS editor. Since I (currently) work for a draconion tech company staffed by Luddites, I will have to check this out at home.

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My friend John Auchter is one of the most intelligent (and by the number of “discussions” we’ve had, most patient) people I know. John is also really freakin’ good at putting those wonderful ideas of his into comics. His latest comic is one such example. To writ:

Now I will say this: Hopefully, in these few weeks between election seasons, we can talk about this in a less emotional way. I think those who would like to see gay marriage legalized have to respect and acknowledge people’s religious feelings on the subject. Nobody likes to have something they find distasteful shoved in their face.

For instance, I don’t ever want to have to see a Cirque du Soleil show. I don’t want to ever vacation in Branson, Missouri. And I don’t ever want to tour a veal farm. I have no firsthand knowledge of these things, but the mere thought of them makes me queasy. Perhaps if I were a more free-thinking person I could. But in these cases, I wear the badge of closed-minded prejudice with pride. So, yeah, I understand how being forced to discuss homosexuality could be unpleasant for some. Hold that thought.

And he hits on nail on the proverbial head. Majority isn’t always right. Just look at Branson, Missouri.

Personally, I voted against the gay marriage amendment because I don’t think it’s government’s place to tell me what and what is not moral. That’s a slippery slope no one should ignore. But, John is a lot funnier about it, so go read his comic and the commentary (you’re not allowed to skip the commentary) right now.

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WoodTV has posted the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for CyberNET. Any teachers out there, you can use this to illustrate just what a Ponzi scheme is.

Link (PDF)

This case just gets worse and worse. The remaining executives seem to be rallying around the missing head of Barton Watson and looting the company while they can. Creditors are filing lawsuits left and right but, surprise, there’s no money left. Why?

[CyberNET’s Chairman Jim] Horton said he doesn’t have any money to pay creditors; and yet, just before Watson killed himself during a standoff with police last week, Horton wired money into his own bank account. One million dollars of that money went to an office in Hong Kong. $750,000 went to Barton Watson’s mother. Another $20,000 went to Barton’s wife Krista, with Horton’s wife Angie receiving $20,000.

Right. Since his golden parachute got a hole shot in it, Horton is now screwing the creditors out of everything he can get.

Prison is too good for people like this.

Link to quoted story
Link to Watson 911 tapes
Link to Watson suicide story
Employee reaction
Employees to get no more checks
CybrNET was a “Ponzi” scheme – mLive
CyberNET’s final employee newsletter (news story, no actual newsletter)
Employees return to work after raid
Barton a “true con man”, and OCD, apparently

I want a set of these! Logitech behind-the-head, dual headphone, boom mic, and the cover is red. Very cool.

(Actually, I’m just posting this here so I don’t forget it.)

ThinkGeek :: Logitech Internet Chat Headset

Before you think he is, he’s not. Dan Rather’s mistake of running with a story he should have been more skeptical about is only the cover for Bill’s other objective. Like so many before him, O’Reilly is not defending Rather. Rather, he’s protecting his bread and butter – old-school journalism. The Bush papers (and Swift Boat Vets before that) are not the fault of bloggers who got away with something “wip[ing] out a lifetime of honor and hard work” simply by having a LiveJournal account. In fact, if O’Reilly had done his homework, he would know that the bloggers were the first ones to debunk the papers.

And if you think O’Reilly isn’t protecting himself, check this quote out:

Unfair freedom of speech did him in. This is not your grandfather’s country anymore.

Nice. Nothing like playing the Fear card. But, to be fair, he’s right. This isn’t your grandfather’s country anymore. No more will the Hearst’s and Clear Channels (other side)of the world have sole ownership of information. They may control certain media, but there is always a voice available to, well, people like me. Not that anyone reads this, but I can still publish it, which is a step in the right direction. And there are many other smarter and more dedicated people out there whose voice is being heard on the internet. They are the ones who have kicked in grand-dad’s teeth and changed the media.

O’Reilly mentions that the flaw in journalism is that journalists rely on other journalists for information. I submit that what is really pissing him off is that, under the Old Guard, he was only accountable to those from which he got the information. Now, he’s accountable to everyone. Me, you, Slashdot, Boing Boing, Fark, hell, even Jason Kottke can weigh in if he wants. Yeah, I think that might have something to do with Bill’s defense of Dan.

New York Daily News – Home – Bill O’Reilly: Dan got smeared