It's all over the internet today that Disney has bought Marvel Entertainment, which includes Marvel Comics. The fanboys are in a tizzy.

Just to get them out of my system, here are some of Disney\Marvel synergies I hope develop out of this deal:

1. Punisher \ Mickey Mouse crossover. I know that Punisher already had to deal with Archie and the Riverdale gang, but this just has to happen.

2. The Incredibles Vs. the Fantastic Four. I mean, c'mon, most of the Incredibles' powers are a rip off of the Fantastic Four anyway. Invisibility, the ability to stretch, a big strong guy, and a kid that catches on fire. Hell, if it wasn't for the super fast kid, they'd be carbon copies.

3. The Nutty Professor in Marvel continuity. Oh, for one superhero who's powers are based on flubber. Wait, the character is owned by Universal? Really? Damn. Fine, the dad from Honey I Shrunk the Kids, then.

4. Goofy Vs. Dr. Doom. Actually, there's no crossover potential here, just want to see Goofy get whacked.

5. Chip N Dale and Squirrel Girl porn. Disney isn't as pure at heart as you might think.

6. Namor vs. the Little Mermaid. There can be only one Atlantis....

7. The Runaways on the Disney channel. Oh, for a mind controlled velociraptor to be let loose on the set of Miley Cyrus' new tv show....

8. The Bambi movie in Marvel Zombies. Maybe now people would want his mom to be shot.

9. Animal vs. the Hulk. That's right, Disney owns the Muppets. Oh, the beautiful, beautiful carnage.

10. Winnie the Pooh and Tony Stark going on a bender. Honey and booze. They could both get drunk on mead. They also both seem to be fond of pots, be they honey pots or Pepper Potts.

My friend Sarah forwarded this response to my last blog post. Really, Monty Python does say it best.

This was posted on fark.com by someone calling themselves Ozone, and I intend to use it the next time some tries to scare me with government interventionist propaganda.

"This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right."

original source here.

Thank you ozone.

My grandma died today, 93 years old. I miss her.

A very interesting article was published in the Boston Globe today. Apparently, there is a growing movement to provide nature with legal rights. A town in Maine made it possible for residents to file lawsuits on behalf of "natural assets." This was brought about as a proactive action against the Nestle Company in case they attempted to tap the local aquifer for it's bottled water products.

On one level, this seems to be an absurd over reaction and perhaps even a prime example of the hyper-litigious culture that exists today. On the other hand, two of the ways society can assign value are to place a monetary value upon it and to give it legal rights. The article points out [o]ther nonhuman entities have long enjoyed certain rights under our legal system: ships and corporations are two examples of entities entitled to “personhood,” meaning they can bring lawsuits to court. The notion that corporations are essentially people in the current legal structure has bothered me deeply, both as an expression of structural evil, and as an example of how the idea of inalienable rights has been divorced from the idea of inalienable responsibilites, ie. the social contract theory. But, I digress.

Upon reflection, I think that I'm also intrigued by the theological implications that this debate might open up. The idea of "personhood" in a legal sense leaning closer towards the idea of pantheism or panentheism; endowing nature with divine presence, as well as revisiting the Biblical story of Genesis, where humanity was installed as either caretakers or dominators of nature, depending on how Genesis is read. It also reminds me of the Talmudic debates about the nature of the golem, a humanoid creation of clay, whether it counted as a person for the minyan, the Jewish prayer circle, or the destruction of a golem would be considered murder or destruction of property.

Of course, another argument can be made that we are projecting human values and concerns onto nature by entering lawsuits on their behalf. The article also speaks to this position, and highlights it better than I think I could. A counter to this concern is that a similar issue could be found with ships and people as non-human "persons," as it isn't the bodies themselves, but rather humans speaking on their behalves that actually has the legal standing.

In short, re-visiting how society views nature is a very serious matter, with significant economic, religious, and political repercussions. In so far as it is an extra layer of protection for the environment, I support the effort, though I need to learn more before I'm fully convinced. It does seem like a neat solution to the issue with corporations being legal entities, though. In closing, the article points out another interesting fact, "What’s more, proponents say, the extension of rights invariably seems absurd before it happens. When the economy depended on slave labor, emancipation was unfathomable even to many who abhorred slavery. In retrospect, though, it seems morally imperative and historically inevitable."

Hey, sometimes I blog post stuff just so I don't lose track of it. This is one of those times.

With the recent attack on the Holocaust museum and the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, I've been thinking and worrying about a possible upswing of domestic terrorism, possibly prompted by the poor economy, having an African American president, a change in how we pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more. I've been less connected to my political and national news feeds since I started my new job, but today I found a number of articles that are reflecting similar thoughts.

Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security released a Bush-administration-commissioned report in April detailing Right Wing Extremism which was thoroughly thrashed by conservative pundits. However, that report is looking to be more and more prescient.

One article I read from the Huffington Post touched on a question I have often wondered about, has the shift in news reporting and the increased exposure of on-air pundits contributed to this climate?

Seeds of Hatred---Reaping the Harvest by Larry Gellman

I think it's well worth the read. One excerpt reads:

" I'm certain that O'Reilly will insist, as Beck did, that it would be both wrong and unfair to link the inflammatory rhetoric and the vicious language of his repeated attacks against Dr. Tiller to the fact that a passionate true believer may have taken him seriously and decided to rid the world of this murderous Nazi abortionist.

But the venom spewers can't have it both ways. In their zeal to make headlines and establish themselves as true leaders of a movement and a party that has become consumed by anger and hate, these "celebrities" have chosen to abandon their civility, reason, and sense of responsibility. They either mean what they say -- in which case those who rid the world of murderers, Nazis, and other liberal villains should be hailed as heroes -- or they don't in which case they are simply cowardly liars committing libel in the name of the First Amendment as they discredit their once-proud movement and/or party."

For more background about the conservative response to the DHS report, read this Daily Kos article.

What bothers me the most is how this low level of discourse is becoming more accepted. As a Christian, I am amazed that so many others who also claim to be a Christian can overlook Jesus' commandment to "love one another as you love yourself." In my reading of the Bible, that seems to be central to the Jesus movement.

My hope is that this type of discourse will consume itself without injuring or killing any bystanders or objects of their rage in the process. My fear is that these death throes may be quite violent, or worse, they might not be death throes at all.

I try to remember to be not afraid.