Comic Book Thor vs. Movie Thor

So Kenneth Branagh is directing "Thor" as part of the Marvel movie arc leading up to "The Avengers".

This is the classic Silver Age version of the Nordic God of Thunder.





OK, that blue, sleeveless, spandex outfit with the bright yellow belt & leggings and pointless silver circular things on his chest?

Yeah there ain't no way to make that shit work on the big screen.

In much the same way that this Silver Age Batman



would never work on the modern Big Screen and needed to be reimagined as The Dark Knight.



Luckily, Marvel has, on occasion, reimagined Thor. As in this badass version:





Which seems to be the inspiration for this first pic of Chris Hemsworth in costume as Thor:



I think this is going to work.

We Want Boor

Tattooist submission from Timothy B. Boor, which I somehow missed in my inbox! Sorry!

Gazongas

Lordy, Roman Abrego! She looks like a sweet, innocent girl...

The Easy Fix For Illegal Immigration

Let's just cut to the chase.

The answer is a National Identification Card.

Everyone gets one when they are born. Name, SSN, parents names & SSNs, recorded.

Citizens get one.

If you don't have one, you're not a citizen.

If the Tea Baggers were serious about cracking down on illegal immigrants, they would be pushing for this.

A piece of plastic with an RFID chip, a barcode and a magnetic stripe.

Problem solved, right?

On The Business End Of A Saturn V

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

(Be sure to click the little half-asterisk thingy netween the bars and the "vimeo" to get the full screen version.)

The mobile launch pad takes quite a beating under the full fury of five F1 engines churning out 7.5 million pounds of hellish thrust.

The narration explaining what you are seeing is awesome.

Humans made all this stuff.

Americans made all this stuff.

But now we don't know how to make it anymore because politicians are pandering pussies who don't understand science or engineering and can't take a long view towards human civilization.

Fuckers.

Baby Emma vs. Sean Goldman

Earlier today, my friend @bullevard (check out his beer blog and food blog) asked what I thought about the Baby Emma saga.

CLIFF NOTES:

Unmarried couple expecting a child agree that they will decide, together, what they are going to do.

Woman goes into labor, doesn't tell father, goes into hiding, puts baby up for adoption to Mormons in Utah.

Father finds out and immediately starts fighting to get his daughter back.

Draconian Utah adoption laws make it virtually impossible for a single, non-Mormon, out-of-state parent to get an adoption overturned.

One year later, mother is sorry, regrets. Father still fighting. Utah still cock-blocking evryone.

I think, nay, I am certain, that @bullevard was trying to light me up because of my response to the David Goldman case.

CLIFF NOTES:

David Goldman knowing took his Brazillion wife Bruna and his 4 year old son Sean to the airport for what was to be a 2 week vacation to visit her family in Brazil.

She gets down there, decides she Sean ain't comin' back. She divorces David, gets remarried, gets pregnant and dies in childbirth.

Bruna's family decide to keep Sean in Brazil and have the political connections to make that happen.

A 5 year long custody and child support battle ensues during which David Goldman pays no child supprt and the family in Braxil refuse to grant him access.

Sean is now 9 years old. The only family he has any clear memory of is his mother's family in Brazil. All of his friends and emotional connections are in Brazil.

Along comes this virtual stranger from America wanting to rip Sean away from the only family he has ever known.

THE ISSUE (for me):

As parents, we are obligated to elevate the best interests of our children above our own needs and desires.

I think the father in the Baby Emma case is doing that. His daughter is only a year old. She hasn't had ttime to develop any lasting emotional ties to anyone.

There is still time for him to get his daughter back so that they can form that lasting bond together.

I think he is sacrificing his own needs and wants as a young man and is working in the best interest of his daughter.

The Goldman case was different.

Sean Goldman spent all of his life that he could remember, from the age of 4 to 9 in the custody of his mother's family in Brazil. They loved him and he loved them. He went to school in Brazil for 5 years. Kindergarten through 4th grade. The only friends he had were in Brazil. The only family he had were in Brazil.

David Goldman spent 5 years determined to rip him out of the only loving environment he had ever know so he could be forced to spend time with him, a stranger in a strange land.

I don't think David Goldman was sacrificing his own needs and wants for his child. I think he was putting his own pride and bruised ego above the best interests of his son.

I think if David Goldman cared more about his son than himself, he would have swallowed his pride and worked things out with his ex-wife's family.

He could have gotten routine access to Sean and built a relationship with his son. After some trust and goodwill had been established, he might have been granted partial custody by Brazillion authorities. In time, maybe even full custody, with the Brazillian families blessing.

One More Thought On Arizona

So the core problem here is that some of the residents of Arizona think Arizona has too many Messicans!

Keep in mind that the majority of Arizona residents aren't from Arizona. They retired there from somewhere else.

Maybe, just maybe, (thinking outside the box here) the reason that Arizona has so many Mexicans is because ARIZONA USED TO BE PART OF MEXICO!!! We stole it at the barrel of a whole lot of guns during the Mexican-American War in 1848!



As the descendants of the original residents are fond of saying, "We didn't come to America! America came to us!"

It reminds me of when my dad and step-mom returned from their first trip to Hawaii and complained that the trip was spoiled by all the foreigners there, i.e. native Hawaiians, Polynesians, Asians, ya know PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING PACIFIC OCEAN! Not exactly a traditional Anglo-Saxon/Nordic homeland! That's because we stole Hawaii too!

At least we bought Alaska fair and square from those dumb Rooskies! But to their credit, compared to Siberia, Alaska looked like a hard to access Rhode Island to them and they probably figured they were getting the better part of the deal by unloading it on us.

Does no one else think it's odd that we have 2 states that we can't get to without going through a whole lot of Canada or a whole lot of ocean?

But I digress.

Here's a simple Rule of Thumb to remember.

If you invade someone else's land, steal it and call it your own, don't bitch and whine about having a large contigent of native inhabitants who not only refuse to leave but continue to invite their friends and relatives to come and visit.

Get the fuck over it.