God is REALLY Blessing America!

God is truly blessing America!

HOPE now replaces a long history of denial in America. In 1945 on a bitter cold night on the way back to college, I stopped at a restaurant in Pennsylvania for a cup of hot chocolate only to be told that I could buy it – but had to drink it outside!

Born in 1927, I have long lived in a country where the color of my skin has denied me many important things: such as being valedictorian for my class, instead being named salutatorian; because of racism, in WWII in 1947 I was denied the opportunity to be a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army; and in 1952, I “hit the ceiling” on where a ‘black’ man could go in civil service.

You can only imagine how very grateful I am to have lived to see this new dawning in history, where my grandchildren and great grand children have new opportunities. All things are possible with God. Barack Obama was God’s choice!

Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Horror, Gaming, Anime & Comic Conventions – They Are Not All The Same

A very large number of people who have never attended a Sci-Fi convention have the idea that they are all about people standing in line to get autographs of actors while wearing Klingon makeup and costumes or pointed ears. I’m not saying that those stereotypes don’t exist but the Convention experience is much richer and diverse than you may have been led to believe. To get the best experience it is important first consider your interests and then match them to what conventions are available.

Conventions come in two primary flavors. Professional and fan run. Professional conventions should have actors who have appeared in genre television and films ready to sign autographs and have their photos taken with fans. Some of these conventions include the costs of autographs and photo sessions in the cost of admission others operate in more of an a la carte fashion.

Often genre conventions have previews of new shows and films, and usually an extensive dealer’s room where you can buy anything from jewelry, ornaments, t-shirts and action figures to full scale replicas and costumes…and more. While there are a number of professional promoters the best known and run are Chiller Theatre Expo, Creation Entertainment, Fed Con ( Germany ), Starland and Vulcon. Do expect things to be as advertised and run on time. Do not expect warm and fuzzy.

Warm and fuzzy is more the field of fan run conventions. Fans who get together to run conventions have a great deal of enthusiasm, but usually are run with a volunteer staff and can be a bit “bumpy” with organization of the activities. What you can expect? A movie room, anime room, gaming room, art show, dealer’s room, and various special interest group rooms and tables. It is a rare con that doesn’t have a dance and a masquerade. Many fan run conventions also have guests ranging from actors, authors, cartoonists, illustrators, scientists etc. You may also find workshops for writing, acting, art, costuming, make-up and special effects. It all varies from convention to convention and year to year. Older fan run conventions such as Aggie Con, Balticon, Bay Con, CONvergence, Dragon Con, ICON, Shore Leave, United Fan Con, Toronto Trek to name a few.

Ahmadinejad’s letter to Obama sparks storm in Iran

TEHRAN – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received praise from Iranian opposition
politicians and withering criticism from its conservatives after he sent Barack
Obama a letter last week congratulating him on winning the U.S. presidential
race.

But in a sign that conservatives fear their attacks might inadvertently
strengthen a possible opposition candidate in Iran’s own presidential vote in
June, their criticism has quickly shifted to early support for Ahmadinejad’s
re-election.

The potential opponent is former President Mohammad Khatami, the moderate whom
Ahmadinejad bested in the last elections, in 2005. Khatami has not yet announced
his candidacy, but is under pressure from his political allies to run.

On Friday, Obama offered a public reaction to the letter in his first
post-election news conference, saying that he would review it and respond
appropriately. But he also said that Iranian “support for terrorist
organizations has to ease” and that its suspected development of nuclear weapons
was not acceptable.

On Saturday, opposition politicians offered praise for Ahmadinejad’s outreach.
The letter “presented a humane, reasonable and peace-seeking image of Iran,”
according to the daily newspaper Etemaad.

Battle Of Browser – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla’s Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla’s Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Fact Behind Bali Bombing

Now this is interesting, the report partially concurs with the Vialls Report, but instead of suggesting that the second “high-tech” device – probably some sort of SADM micro-nuke according to Vialls – was planted in a sewer, they suggest that “something fell from the sky”. In either case this is more credible than the “car bomb” story because no car bomb will ever create a 5 foot deep crater, it’s a physical impossibility. A bomb dropped from an aircraft (ultra-new stealthy plane?) would cause a crater that deep. In some ways I think it is more likely that the device was a bomb dropped from a stealthy aircraft, it would be much easier for those ultimately manipulating the guys who planted the conventional explosives. Maybe they parked a vehicle on the spot and then dropped the bomb through it (a la Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears”) to make it look like a huge carbomb… Given that all the rubble has been dumped far out to see we won’t be able to tell if the micro-nuke theory was correct. The western media is focusing on warnings that didn’t get passed on and is blindly ignoring this and other evidence that suggests this bombing was not the work of Islamic “terrorists”. The guys in custody are patsies pure and simple, I’m sure they were responsible for the conventional blasts but the main one, the real killer could not have been made by them, it was simply too complex and powerful a bomb.

The more news that comes out about the Bali Bombing the less I am inclined to believe the official story, it simple doesn’t add up. They are playing the usual game of repeating the same inaccurate shyt endlessly until everyone simply accepts it as fact. They honestly think we’re all idiots who they can dismiss as “kooks”!

The First Dragon

Have you ever been curious about the first Dragon in history? Where it was from, did it have a name? I know I was. I also realized that I would have to settle on the first Dragon in recorded history. Since time travel still eludes me. That is when I decided to do a little surfing, well, a lot of surfing and a lot of reading, as it turned out. Yes, I even hit the hard copy.

At first I was instantly gratified, as I’m sure many have been before me. A lot of web sites that I went to all told me the same… my quest was over…it was Anzu of Babylon, a.k.a Zu, c.1st Millennium B.C. From “Ninurta vs. Anzu” or “The Myth of Anzu“. I read the descriptions, and with the exception of a few minor variations, it was this: Body and head of a lion, wings of an eagle (I didn’t realize they had eagles in Babylon), razor sharp talons, the beak of a bird with teeth, and an armor-plated breast. It to me was a bit of a let down. I don’t know about you, but to me Anzu sounds more like a griffin than a dragon. As I’m sure you will agree from the Babylonian depiction to the right. I also noticed a lot of copy and paste activity between a lot of the sites. So I decided to take a closer look, and actually read the original story as translated from the Babylonian clay tablets. At no time is Anzu referred to as a dragon. In other Babylonian text it is actual referred to as the Anzu Bird. In Sumerian text of the 3rd Millennium BC, Anzu was known as, the Zu-bird, a mythological creature which at times wrought mischief. From – Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the nether world – (Sumerian) : “In its branches, the Anzu bird settled its young.” So, as far as the Babylonians and I are concerned, not only is Anzu not the first dragon, but not a dragon at all, and deserves no further mention. I did feel I was on the right trail though,