Hulleye Comes By!

The House of Representatives passed legislation to expand federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research. President Bush said he would veto the legislation because it “violates the clear standard I set four years ago. This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life.”

The standard Bush set four years ago and repeated last week is that we shouldn’t take one life—even an embryonic life—in order to save others. Cost-benefit analysis is never sufficient grounds for the premeditated killing of civilians—except when it comes to the death penalty. When the discussion shifts from embryos to murderers, Bush and his spokesmen routinely argue that killing is justified not because murderers deserve it, but because it’s moral to take one life in order to save others. He doesn’t say that Person A should be executed because Person A is a danger to society. He says that Person A should be executed because the execution will deter Person B from killing Person C.

Before Bush vetoes the stem-cell bill, maybe he should explain how his comments about stem cells in the left column below square with his comments about capital punishment in the right column.

via slate

kay has done a great job to produce a fantastic parody of a softer world with a desi twist.

…and you’re all kaafir’s. read all about it at ko’s website.

Recently, many people have been asking about the permissibility of blogs, i.e. online diaries - I’m sure many of us have seen and read them. I submitted a question to Mufti Nawalur-Rahman about them, the answer can be heard here. English translation: “Going to websites like these will not be permissible, because they contain personal matters and also they specify names/identities which can create a path for bay-hayaai (shamelessness), and unlawful relations, and It is a source that may leak out the faults/kharaabiyan ‘aayb’ of muslims. It will not be permissible.”

from nin.com, reznor has refused to play at the 2005 mtv video music awards because mtv has refused to put up the backdrop they requested for a song that they wished to play (the hand that feeds - requires qt). all they had asked for was to put up an unadulterated image of the president, george w. bush.

“Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV Movie Awards as previously announced,” the 40-year-old rocker says in a statement on NIN.com. “We were set to perform ‘The Hand That Feeds’ with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our President is as offensive to MTV as it is to me. See you on tour this fall when we return to play in America.”

In its own statement, the Viacom-owned MTV responded to the abrupt move. “While we respect Nine Inch Nails’ point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement,” the net says.

source.

Scientists from around the globe are being knocked off or dying from mysterious causes and nobody knows why. Since January of 2004, more than twenty scientists are known to have died in accidents, under suspicious circumstances, or been murdered.

Tom Thorne and Beth Williams, prominent experts on chronic wasting disease, were killed on December 29, 2004, in a road accident.

In November, the former head of the Infectious Diseases Unit of the National Institute of Allegies and Infectuous Diseases died in Mexico, with no cause of death given.

In October, Matthew Allison was killed by an explosion in his car, either due to a bomb or a self-induced explosion. He had degrees in microbiology and biotechnology but was not apparently involved in the field when he died.

In August, Dr. John Clark, an expert in animal science who developed the techniques that led to the creation of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal, was found hanged in his home.

In July, Dr. John Badwey, a biochemist at Harvard Medical School, developed a pneumonia that could not be diagnosed and died.

In June, Dr. John Mullen, a McDonnell Douglas nuclear scientist on contract to Boeing, was killed by a massive dose of arsenic. Also in June, Dallas county’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Assefa Tulu, died of a hemmorhagic stroke, believed to be an accidental death.

Dr. Eugene Mallove, an alternative energy expert and cold fusion researcher, was beaten to death in May near his home. He had just published a letter stating that it was only a matter of months before the world would see a free energy device.

Also in May, the body of senior programming analyist William T. McGuire, was found in three suitcases in and around the Chesapeake Bay. His murder remains unsolved, and no motive has been uncovered. He was an adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

In March, Louisiana State University emeritus professor of microbiology Dr. Vadake Srinivasan died in an auto accident apparently caused by a stroke.

In January of 2004, Dr. Michael Patrick Kiley, an expert on Mad Cow and Ebola died of unexpected heart failure, and Dr. Robert Shope, a virus expert died of lung transplant complications.

In October of 2003, another LSU professor, West Nile researcher Michael Perich, died in a single-vehicle car accident.

In July of 2003, British biological weapons expert David Kelly died after allegedly slashing his own wrists while walking near his home. He was the Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific officer and senior adviser on biological weapons to the UN biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq.

Dr. Leland Rickman, an expert on infectious diseases and consultant on bioterrorism at the University of California at San Diego died during a visit to Lesotho.

The list is a long one, and it goes on. Since 2001, there have been 47 such deaths reported outside of Iraq, and reputedly numerous scientsts in Iraq who worked on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs have been assassinated.

This article was gathered from numerous sources.

Steve Quayle maintains an ongoing list of scientists dying under suspicious circumstances. Click here.

From comingsoon.net, Spielberg and Lucas have both signed off on a fourth Indiana Jones film. only Harrison Ford is yet to sign off on it. Rumour has it that Steven Spielberg says that the film will feature all of Jones’ former babes in various cameo roles. Karen Allen is expected to be back for one soundbite, and other Indy girls who had smaller roles will be coming back. It is still up in the air whether or not Kate Capshaw, Spielberg’s wife, will make an appearance. Sean Connery as Indy’s father will be back for a few scenes, and the film is set in the early ’50s.

http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/bts/production/f20050526/index.html

all the star wars episode iii easter eggs listed above on the official star wars website.

May 27, 2005

Today’s computers and other technological gizmos operate on electronic charges, but researchers predict that a new generation of smaller, faster, more efficient devices could be developed based on another scientific concept – electronic “spin.” The problem, however, is that researchers have found it challenging to control or predict spin – which keeps practical applications out of reach.
But physicists in Europe, California and at Ohio University now have found a way to manipulate the spin of an electron with a jolt of voltage from a battery, according to research findings published in the recent issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Read On: PhysOrg.com

More here.

“Serenity” the comic was written not only for fans of the show “Firefly,” but also for fans of character driven science fiction. “The comic is absolutely accessible to the new reader,” Matthews told CBR News. “We wanted to make it something that someone who had never seen the show could pick up and understand and enjoy and to this end the comic tells an original story that anyone who reads it will experience from beginning to middle to end. You’ll meet the characters, you’ll see the mess they find themselves in and then you’ll watch them struggle to overcome it. It’s self-contained that way.”

One of the ongoing mysteries of “Firefly” was the true intentions of the Blue Sun Corporation and its mysterious blue gloved enforcers who often displayed blank looks while carrying out acts of brutality. Matthews cryptically confirmed that the Hands of Blue would make an appearance in the series. “I’m drawing a blank on this one,” he said. Another ongoing mystery on “Firefly” was the enigmatic past of the character Shepherd Book. Readers of “Serenity” will get a few more clues to Book’s mysterious background. The biggest mystery of “Firefly,” what exactly was done to River Tam, the young sister of the ship’s doctor will be addressed in the “Serenity” film. “See the movie this September. Twice,” Matthews answered when asked about River.

Suspect wife or girlfriend of cheating? Buy some of these panties with GPS built in, or an advanced version with heat and heart rate sensors.

testimonial:

My wife and I got married three years ago. Last winter I started suspecting her of cheating. It was tearing my heart out to think of her with another man.

In an act of desperation I bought these panties, and boy am I glad I did.

It turns out, she was sleeping with her coworker! She was going to a hotel near her office nearly every workday.

I monitored her through the mapping software, pantyMap®, for several weeks, and then I confronted her.

forget-me-not-panties™ saved me from a bad marriage.

To all Karachiites,

Nando’s ad, as seen at the do talwar roundabout. Hilarious.

“Why did the chicken cross the road? Because the underpass is taking forever!”

The advertisement alludes to the controversial construction of the Clifton Underpass through Schon circle which you can learn more about here, here and here.

over the last little while, business’ have been pumping out electronic jargon for the common man like a whale spouts water. ebooks, novels, online music were meant to be the rave. it was a step forward to a paperless society. libraries were to become obsolete. digital media storage were announcing breakthroughs in data storage. what happened? drm happened. drm stands for digital rights management or digital restrictions management which means any of several technical arrangements which empower a vendor of content in electronic form to control how the material can be used on any electronic device with such measures installed. recently a fellow in norway had this issue. who bought an ebook for $172, then upgraded his version of acrobat and lost the ability to read it. no one answers his tech support emails and his $172 ebook is just a jumble of encrypted bits on his harddrive. this is the outcome of drm: it only punishes the people who are willing to shell out money for digital works, and it drives them to seek either infringing editions or competing, free information.

he reports,

In January I bought my first ebook (ISBN: B0000E68Z2), which is published by Wiley. I have one copy on my laptop and a backup on my external harddrive. Last week, I downloaded and installed Adobe Professional (writer 6.0) from our company network (Norwegian School of Management, BI) - during the installation some files from the Adobe version that I downloaded and installed when I bought the ebook (from Amazon.com UK) were deleted. Since then, I have not been able to access my ebook - I have tried to get help from our computer staff but they have not been able to help me. Adobe thinks that I’m using another computer, while I’m not - and it didn’t help to activate the computer through some Adobe DRM Activator stuff. Now I have spent at least 10 hours trying to access my ebook.

also here is another case with a fairly similar issue.

I’d never actually bought an eBook.

So I thought, how does this work? Is it Microsoft blahblah reader only? Is it PDF? And then I clicked on and discovered that Amazon provides both a “Microsoft Reader” version and a “Adobe Reader” version. “Aha! Adobe! So it’s PDF! I can buy it here now, and print it at school tomorrow! I can read it on all my computers! I can bring it on my PDA! Lovely! I don’t have to wait!”. So I clicked on. Payed my $5 and after some “personalization progress” (probably for branding my own PDF so they could trace it back to me if it appeared on bittorent) I was redirected to a download site.

So I had just bought my first eBook. I thought. But it wasn’t a book. There was hardly an “e”. All I got was this lousy XML file named ebx.etd.

So I went back to Amazon, clicking on eBook support. I had tried everything they said to try if you had problems. It was a big list. I wonder how it was many years ago when real books came with a 5 page list of things to do if you couldn’t open the book. I wanted to cancel my purchase. As all I had was some “ebx-transfer” file, and not the real book.

go through the two websites mentioned above to see what sort of support amazon and adobe offered them. truly horrendous and sad.

He says he’s finished, but like a two-year-old on the Loo - has he really?

George Lucas tells a scooper for Cinescape that in the back of his noggin’ he has an idea for another add-on to the “Star Wars” movie series : A prequel to “The Phantom Menace”.

Nope, not the adventures of young Jar Jar Binks building an underwater haven - but the tales of the Jedi regaining control of the universe from the many Dark Lords some 88 years before Anakin Skywalker’s bowl cut ever graced the earth.

Yoda - who was instrumental in the effort - would apparently have a headlining role.
Granted, Lucas, now 60, says he won’t be captaining such a ship if it ever happens though. What’s the bet FOX is going to lock him in a room, tie him to a chair and request he does anyway though?

Meanwhile, “Revenge of the Sith” hogs the screen at every multiplex and is making quite a packet in doing so - it’s now one of the biggest films ever. Yep, bypassed “Mannequin” about five minutes into it’s first screening.

http://www.moviehole.net/news/5674.html

An appeals court in Minnesota has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

“…the Minnesota appeals court ruled 3-0 that the trial judge was correct to let that information be used when handing down a guilty verdict.

“We find that evidence of appellant’s Internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state’s case against him,” Judge R.A. Randall wrote in an opinion dated May 3.”

thanks bruce.

“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”— George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

For more lovely quotes from the great man, go here.

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this is a project that remixes romance novel covers, adding funny new titles suggested by the cover art. there’s a whole bunch of covers up, with lots of titles suggested by readers of the site, some of which (e.g., WHEN COUSINS MARRY, THE CLEAVAGE OF MARY-ANN PUSHUP, THE SMUG VIKING WHO SHAVED HIS NIPPLES, FOR THE LOVE OF SCOTTIE MCMULLET) are hilarious.

Jay Leno did a text off between two text messengers and two Morse coders. Here’s a video of it (WMV). The Morse coders handily beat the young whippersnappers with time to spare. Comments from the Morse code guys here.

poor sobs. they got their copies a day too late. how sad is that.

A police crackdown - Pakistan is one of the top 10 producers of pirated DVDs - caused the delay.

The appearance of Revenge of the Sith - the sixth and final edition of George Lucas’ epic galactic adventure - in the city’s pirate market “was well behind schedule”, retailers told the BBC News website.

Most new English-language movies are pirated within 48 hours of their release, they say. Indian movies, by comparison, are released in Pakistan’s pirate market three days before their legal release in Indian cinemas.

why we lie to each other and ourselves. courtesy scientific american.

The obvious question raised by all of this accounting is: Why do we lie so readily? The answer: because it works. The Homo sapiens who are best able to lie have an edge over their counterparts in a relentless struggle for the reproductive success that drives the engine of evolution. As humans, we must fit into a close-knit social system to succeed, yet our primary aim is still to look out for ourselves above all others. Lying helps. And lying to ourselves–a talent built into our brains–helps us accept our fraudulent behavior.

If this bald truth makes any one of us feel uncomfortable, we can take some solace in knowing we are not the only species to exploit the lie. Plants and animals communicate with one another by sounds, ritualistic displays, colors, airborne chemicals and other methods, and biologists once naively assumed that the sole function of these communication systems was to transmit accurate information. But the more we have learned, the more obvious it has become that nonhuman species put a lot of effort into sending inaccurate messages.

alan moore has seemingly given dc comics the finger and cut off all ties and gone to indy publisher top shelf. the next installments of the league of extraordinary gentlemen will not be published by dc comics anymore.

Alan Moore, co-creator of the “V For Vendetta” comic, has publicly disassociated himself from the upcoming Warner Brothers movie project based on the comic book and written and produced by the Wachowski Brothers. And as a result, he has cut his remaining ties with DC Comics, including future volumes of the “League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

Speaking to me on Friday, Moore added to this sentiment, telling me “after the films came out, I began to feel increasingly uneasy, I have a dwindling respect for cinema as it is currently expressed.” This came to a head when Alan Moore was sued as part of a suit against 20th Century Fox for plagiarism of the screenplay “Cast Of Characters” which bore heavy resemblance to the movie version of “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” starring Sean Connery.

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” was a series Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill created for Wildstorm, a comic studio and then part of the publisher Image Comics. The series takes the entirety of Victorian pulp fiction as a backdrop for new adventures for a team of very familiar characters. As part of his ABC line for Wildstorm, the comics continued even after DC Comics bought Wildstorm. Moore’s history with DC Comics over creator ownership and corporate attitudes had seen him swear off working with them, so a “firewall” was built up so Moore could continue the line, but never have to deal with DC Comics. However, DC editorial occasionally interfered with published work, leading Alan Moore withdrawing cooperation from an anniversary reprint and CD of his iconic superhero work “Watchmen.”

http://slate.msn.com/id/2119056/fr/rss/

It’s OK to admit it. You’re going to see Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith. The critics are united—it doesn’t suck as bad as the other two prequels—and it is, after all, a cultural event. But now you’re in trouble. Because unlike the geeks who are going to be at the first midnight show (who, me?), you are a perfectly normal person. At this point in George Lucas’ attenuated narrative arc, you have precisely no idea what the hell is going on.

We’re here to help.

the man they call jayne.

due to overwhelming user requests to combine it’s disparate services, google today released its new personalized homepage service. it allows you to arrange your gmail, google news, google maps driving directions, weather and a few select news services (including slashdot, bbc, nyt, wired and more) on a single page. future plans include universal rss support. clearly a shot at existing services like my yahoo.

two conversations between an egyptian and a jordanian taxi cab driver in amman, jordan.

Here are some of my cab conversations from the past couple of days.

Ride 1:
Cab driver listening to the local Qur’an station (”Give us 22 minutes, or your whole day for that matter, and we’ll give you background Qur’an recitations. It’s muzak for the righteous.”)

Me: “Assalamu Alaykum”
Driver: “Wa alaykum assalam… you’re Muslim. You know it’s best to just listen to Qur’an all the time, because music and TV watching is munkar (sinful)–you have to avoid it or you’ll go to hell.”
Me: “You mean you’ve never listened to Umm Kulthum?”
Driver: “I used to, but that was before I realized it was munkar.”
Me: “But shouldn’t we worry about worse things first?”
Driver: “Music and TV only lead to worse things, so it’s best to avoid them.”
Me: “I don’t know… I enjoy my music.”
Driver: “By the way, if you’re staying here a couple of more nights, there are some really nice erotic massage places that opened up in Amman that I can take you to.”

***

Ride 2:

Me: “Assalamu alaykum.”
Driver: “Wa alaykum assalam. You are Muslim. I am from Hebron.”
Me: “Yes, that’s great… it is a place of great struggle.”
Driver: “But more important than that, we are proud that we have no churches in Hebron, only mosques.”
Me: “Oh… is that Four Seasons Hotel over there new? I don;t remember seeing it last time I was here.”
Driver: “Yes, it’s only a couple of years old. Bin Laden was building it, but then he had to stop and Walid Bin Talal finished the job… God will bless Bin Laden and take him to Paradise.”
Me: “Paradise? Did God tell you he’s taking Bin Laden to Paradise?”
Driver: “Why not… he is doing many great things.”
Me: “Really, if he’s going to Paradise, then may be the rest of us are going to hell.”
Driver: “By the way, did you hear that Bill Gates has converted to Islam?”
Me: “No that’s news to me. Where did you hear that?”
Driver: “From the Imam at the Friday prayer last week in his sermon.”
Me: “And you think he’s right?”
Driver: “Of course… he is always right and very reponsible. You see, all the imams are being closely watched by the government here, so they have to always be sure that everything they say is compeltely accurate.”
Me: “Well in that case, that’s good news, may be we’ll all get free computers over here.”
Driver: “Yes, may be.”

thanks MWU!

most people have no clue who galloway is. well he’s in the news now, and hopefully pretty soon everyone will. well he just spent a long, long time giving the US senate a royal finger on msnbc. here is the video. a brief excerpt from his speech.

“Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

“Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

“Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let’s be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had ‘many meetings’ with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

“I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as “many meetings” with Saddam Hussein.

“As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

…

“You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realise played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

“There were 270 names on that list originally. That’s somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

“You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I’ve never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he’s your prisoner, I believe he’s in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

“I’m not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

. . .

“Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you’re such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

“In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there’s nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

“The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It’s a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

“Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life’s blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

more at http://www.crooksandliars.com

On May 5, the New York Times reported that Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, who has spent the last 45 years in a violent struggle to overthrow Fidel Castro, may have snuck into Florida in an attempt to seek political asylum for having served as a cold war soldier on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960’s. Posada has long been a symbol for the armed anti-Castro movement in the U.S.

But he is also, by virtually any definition, a terrorist.

Now, the current Bush administration faces the same test of their convictions. Do they grant Posada asylum, thus compromising their principle that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as terrorists themselves? Do they extradite him, thus handing a victory to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Castro’s closest ally in Latin America and no friend to President Bush? Or do they jail him themselves, thus handing a victory to Castro, who has railed against Posada in recent speeches, calling him the worst terrorist in the Western Hemisphere?

Read the rest at K5.

from the brilliance of the dark side of the force (no pun intended), comes anakin skywalker’s latest entry on darth’s memoirs.

He looked out into the forest spread out beneath the landing platform, his back to me. I ignited his light-sabre, its green glow filling the corridor. Smooth action, nice gyroscopic response. I always end up fiddling around with gadgets whenever somebody says something that makes me feel uncomfortable. “I see you have constructed a new light-sabre,” I said, retracting the blade and turning the handle over in my hands. “Your skills are complete. Indeed you are powerful as the Emperor has foreseen.”

I turned away then, my feelings threatening my composure and the stability of my left leg. I felt Luke’s mind open to my own, reading my heart in a rush of communication I was too slow to interrupt. His thoughts were flavoured like mine, and my defenses could not discern them. His mind is mine.

“Come with me,” he implored suddenly.

my apologies for the constant serenity posts but this is a rather exciting time. whatever questions the series left behind in firefly, and the movie won’t have enough time to answer, the comics are sure to pick up. and joss whedon definitely did a kick ass job on xmen, so let’s see what this new serenity comic brings. thanks to dark horse for bringing this one fan much joy. you can pre-order these comics here.

The plot of the three-issue comic book series centers on the crew members of Serenity, who once again find themselves broke and on the wrong side of a number of very large firearms when a heist goes awry, and some old enemies catch their scent. After facing one failure after another, Malcolm Reynolds becomes the target of a conspiracy between government and mercenary forces, and a tense and divided crew must try to unite behind their compromised leader.

“Working with Joss is always fun and a privilege, and especially so when it’s Serenity,” commented co-writer Brett Matthews. ” I love the characters and the world so much, how distinct and consistent the vision is and always has been. That sometimes to just keep going is enough, that there’s meaning in the struggle even if you don’t know exactly what that meaning is — that speaks to me, and you get it in Serenity in a way that’s dusty and real and organic, not forced. It just fits. It all just means a hell of a lot to me.”

The Serenity comic book miniseries is written by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews with art by Will Conrad and Laura Martin. Each issue of the series, which takes place in the time between the series Firefly and the movie Serenity, will feature three different covers — one for each member of the Serenity crew, drawn by the biggest names in comics. Issue #1 features “Mal” by John Cassaday, “Inara” by J. G. Jones, and “Jayne” by Bryan Hitch. Issue #2 features “Zoe” by Joe Quesada, “Book” by Tim Bradstreet, and “Kaylee” by Jo Chen. Serenity #1 and #2 are available for preorder now at
http://www.darkhorse.com/comics/upcoming.php

photographic gallery of peter grant’s work inspired by pakistan’s decorated vehicles. see more photos at his website.

thanks ko.