Do you like a good Conspiracy Theory?

I visited the blog Beam Me Up the other day because they were discussing a very clever short story written by Shaun Saunders entitled "The Colors 12." I listened to this short story on a podcast they have and I was amazed at the story and the interesting plot that included most conspiracy theories such as an elite shadow group that truly governs the populations and world governments are just their puppets on strings. In the short story, each member is referred to by a color such as Mr. Green and Mr. Magenta, and each member discusses issues ranging from population reduction, aliens, and zero point energy. They want to maintain complete control over all aspects of human life. As a side note, I think the Stargate franchise as been so popular because it includes so many conspiracy theories and they even poke fun at themselves in that regard, but back to the topic.
The blog post was interesting on another note in that they linked to an Austrian journalist named Jane Burgermeister who has brought charges against the WHO, UN, and other high ranking officials citing Bioterrorism and intent to commit mass murder with the vaccine being prepared for the A/H1N1 virus. She is not citing that all vaccines are deadly, this we know because many vaccines have saved many lives. She is referring to this particular vaccine because she believes that the virus was engineered in a laboratory in the first place.
I am bringing up the short story and the news article because there are many people who believe that there does exist and elite group that wishes to reduce the population in order to preserve natural resources for their superior lineage. Well, I do not doubt there are some who desire this but they have been unable to achieve this goal because the world population would not be more than six billion and growing. They would have maintained a small population throughout history but I do not doubt that in difficult financial times there may be some who wish to make as much profit as possible by any means possible even risking the health of people. They may rush to make a vaccine without proper testing protocols and the necesary time (in years) it takes to perfect such a vaccine. The H1N1 virus is not as deadly as Malaria, for example which leads me to believe that big bucks are involved in this entire ordeal, and money makes people do unbelievable things.
Getting back to the short story, what I love about science fiction is that you can take world situations or long held beliefs and turn them into wonderful stories that make you think about the world and people differently. Then you are left with the decision to make on your own: could this be real or is it really just fiction?
Here is the link to the podcast and you need to advance to about the 39 minute mark if you only want to hear the "The Colors 12."

Food and Human Behavior

Image via Wikipedia

There is an interesting episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called "Hard Time" starring Chief Miles O'Brien who, by the way, seems to get in all sorts of legal trouble in this series but that is beside the point. In this particular episode, O'Brien is convicted and punished in a highly technical fashion by placing in his mind the belief he has been incarcerated for about 20 years even though the procedure lasted only a few hours. During this time in "prison" he became so hungry that he believed that he killed another being for food. In the end, he confesses to Dr. Bashir what he believes he has done and that he thought that humanity had evolved beyond the point of such barbarism. At this point I ask myself: "Are we capable of evolving into human beings that would not kill for food?" I have my doubts on this question because almost all my life I have heard stories of people at Christmas time in the USA trample and kill fellow humans to get into a store first in order to get a doll or computer item or whatever material thing that is not necessary for life. I had wondered what would happen if there were a real food shortage and what lengths would people go to feed themselves and their family. Food and water are very basic needs and mix a shortage of both with fear and you have a very deadly cocktail. At this point in time I do not see much change in human behavior. As an example, I read in the newspaper about a mother that killed her child because food was spilled on the ground. Grant that is an extreme example and the mother had to be crazy, but a mother may kill a stranger for food for her family. I again ask myself: "Can we evolve beyond this kind of behavior?" People tell me that if food and work are both plentiful then yes we could advance as a human race but I counter with the question that with such a large population on Earth and limited resources and let's say food and work become scarce again, would we not revert to a more barbaric nature?
I muse these ideas because as of late I see more homeless,beggars, and thieves on the street due to the current economic situation that exists today. It will be most interesting and I must say a little scary to see what the future holds for us.

Michael Jackson as Captain EO

I love science fiction and especially when it promotes peace and harmony in the world and universe. When I think of the music of Michael Jackson (1958-2009), I find in his songs the promotion of those very concepts that I hold so dear. Thriller was especially exciting when it debuted on television because of the combination of a song with a video that told a story with a horror theme. That was exciting to me that music could be combined in such a fashion.
Todays untimey death reminded me of an often forgotten movie he made in which he joined with Disneyland in 1986 to create a science fiction 3D movie that was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, produced by George Lucas, and also starred Anjelica Huston as the evil alien queen. The theme of the movie was that he was there as Captain EO to change the world and he saw the beauty that was hidden deep in the evil alien and in the end he was able to change her and bring out the good.
Rest in Peace, Michael.

Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek XI

Image via Wikipedia

I enjoyed the new Star Trek XI movie so much that I decided to watch my DVD collection of Star Trek:Enterprise. I know, that seems like a weird connection, but if you think about it, the strange new timeline established in the movie actually does have something to do with this series and if it has been affected or not by the changes made in the movie. I remember thinking about the planet Vulcan after leaving the theatre and wondering how they could have destroyed the entire planet and left only a handful of Vulcans in the Universe or at least that was the impression I was given. I then asked myself the question: Did the other timeline cease to exist at the point in time James T. Kirk was born, or did it continue to exist in an alternate timeline which has been done before in "Yesterday's Enterprise." To me, it seems that the writers would not want to wipe out all the years of TOS, TNG, Voyager and some of the movies which leads me to believe that both timelines exisit. As for the series Enterprise, in my opinion it would remain unaffected by this new timeline because the events in this show take place before Kirk is born. However, some of the stories in Enterprise lead up to events in TNG such as the work of Dr. Noonien Soong, but he could have proceeded with his work as such in both timelines. So the writing of future movies or series could still involve familiar characters just acting in a different way. The relationship between the Vulcans and Humans in Enterprise is also an integral part of the series with much attention being placed on T'Pol and her interaction with the crew. I also like how she and Tucker begin a romance and want to have a child thus introducing us to the idea of mixed Human/Vulcan child.
There are many other stories worth exploring but I have only begun watching the DVDs and it has been a while so I do not remember the nuance of each specific story but I look forward to musing over the different possibilities that could exist in both timelines. My family sometimes gives me looks of astonishment at how geeky and ramped up I get when I talk about Star Trek but it is all in good fun!
Live Long and Prosper!

Space Rocks are now Classified!?

I am still trying to wrap my mind around an article I read at Space.com about keeping top secret any incoming bodies that enter the Earth's atmosphere.
From the article:

For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere – but no longer.A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.

Call me an idealist, but I thought the idea of advancing the human race was to have scientists and government science agencies working together to improve our understanding of foreign objects that enter our atmosphere. I guess I have been watching WAY too much Star Trek.

Over the last decade or so, hundreds of these events have been spotted by the classified satellites. Priceless observational information derived from the spacecraft were made quickly available, giving researchers such insights as time, a location, height above the surface, as well as light-curves to help pin down the amount of energy churned out from the fireballs.And in the shaky world we now live, it's nice to know that a sky-high detonation is natural versus a nuclear weapon blast.Where the space-based surveillance truly shines is over remote stretches of ocean – far away from the prospect of ground-based data collection.But all that ended within the last few months, leaving scientists blind-sided and miffed by the shift in policy. The hope is that the policy decision will be revisited and overturned.

So now scientists are left to guess how many objects enter the atmosphere at any time of the day, and at night, the public and amateur astronomers may panic and exaggerate what they saw in the night sky and scientists may not be able to accurately explain what the object was and the government would be able to but it is classified? I guess pretty soon astronomy will be a field of study in the USA that will require high level security clearance or better yet, study and practice science abroad. It will be interesting to see how other governments will classify incoming objects, will they share info with scientists or keep them in the dark too?

Here is the full ARTICLE.

William Shatner On the Tonight Show

I love William Shatner, he is funny, a ham, a hoot, and you never know if he is three sheets to the wind when doing an interview or show. I remember when he hosted the Rose Parade many many years ago and and he was so drunk the descriptions of the floats were hilarious. I think that has been the most memorable and amusing Rose Parade on New Year's Day I have ever watched because I still remember it after all these years, at least 20 or more.
The interview on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien last night had me laughing so hard because he was in true Shatner form: unpredictable yet lovable. The following vid is, in my opinion a riot. I hope you get a good laugh out of it.
You will need to click on the link to enjoy the VIDEO.

A blend of sci fi, music, and art.

I have Trek Today listed on the right hand side of my blog if you want to go directly to read about science fiction related music and art.
The first is this musical event that will be conducted by the Houston Symphony:

The Houston Symphony will offer a Music of Star Trek & More Sci-Fi musical evening in July.
As reported by the Houston Symphony, on July 9th, fans can enjoy a evening of music from science fiction shows, including Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Battlestar Galactica. The evening of music will be conducted by Robert Franz.
The Star Trek part of the performance will cover music from the original series through Star Trek XI.
Fans who dress as their favorite characters can participate in the Symphony's costume contest.
To order tickets and get directions, head to the article located here.

Now THAT is really loving Star Trek and other science fiction shows when you will go to a concert in costume to enjoy the music from the shows! I am almost that crazy but I have never been one to wear a costume not even for Halloween when I was younger.

The other is a blog that discusses the inspiration for some of the scenes in the new Star Trek movie.

llustrator John Eaves has posted some of his early designs for the Riverside ship yards from Star Trek XI.



As reported at Eaves' blog, the ship yards in San Francisco were the inspiration for the Riverside ship yards. "I was still working on the Perpetual ST online when I started on the new Trek movie and during the ship phase of the project, Todd Ramon, Ryan Denning, and I were contemplating the designs for the Earthbound San Francisco ship yards," said Eaves.

Continue reading Riverside Ship Yards Art.

I also loved Patrick Stewart's review of the new Star Trek movie:

Patrick Stewart, who is appearing in Waiting for Godot, took time out from his busy schedule to go and see Star Trek XI.
As reported by The Yorkshire Post, Stewart took a few family members along to see the latest Star Trek movie. ""Yesterday, I took my grandchildren to see the new Star Trek movie," he said. "There were three movie trailers, one for the new Terminator movie, one for the new Harry Potter and one for a Pixar animated movie. All the trailers sounded and looked the same, full of standardized levels of noise, violence and special effects and I thought, 'My God, nothing would attract me to any of these.'"

Continue reading Stewart: Pine Was Brilliant!.


I like how he said it was odd to watch Star Trek without seeing himself in it! I don't know why, but I liked that statement!

Well I was full of Star Trek news today but you all know I am a big fan!

Can Star Trek:TNG have a boring day?

Have you every had a day in which so many things were going on around you such as the phone ringing, people asking too many questions whether they are dumb ones or not, too much to do at work or home that you wished that you could just tune it all out? I guess even Captain Picard likes to get away from it all once in a while as evidenced in this hilarious Youtube video. The ability to make your environment as peaceful as possible in the midst of chaos is a true art form. I wish I could walk around blissfully ignoring the goings on around me at times but then I guess I would get very little done. I can dream about it though......
Enjoy your weekend and this fun video!

Star Trek XI

Well folks, I finally saw Star Trek XI! It premiered this weekend and I went on Saturday and really enjoyed the movie, the time went by so fast while watching I couldn't believe it. The movie was fast paced, very colorful, true to the characters of Spock, Kirk, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov and Capt. Pike was a wonderful character to have so prominantly in the film. My family enjoyed the movie even though they have limited knowledge of the history of Star Trek. Before seeing the movie, I had avoided all comments, reviews, and blogs, Sci Fi Gene made me chuckle with his post about the movie and I did read it after I saw the movie and agree 100%. I wanted to walk into the theatre with limited info about the movie so I could have no preconceptions about the plot and I am glad I did so because when I left the the theatre after having watched the film I had mixed emotions. One being that I loved the movie and the other was WHAT happend to Vulcan and the human mother of Spock (wonderfully played by Winona Ryder by the way)? They were in the movies and the other series, WTF happened? I was so confused because throughout the movie I kept waiting for young Kirk and Spock with the aid of Spock Prime (I loved that in the credits) to go back in time and restore everything to the way it "should be" in true Star Trek fashion because I had the idea this movie was to be the story of how Kirk and Spock joined Starfleet. Boy was I mistaken! This was no ordinary prequel because the alternate time line stayed in place up to the end of the film and I guess we have to assume that the other adventures that took place throughout the entire Star Trek series and movies continued in an alternate time line. This concept reminded me of the episode Yesterday's Enterprise from TNG which happens to be one of my favorite episodes, and the fact that a single event changed the time line in that episode but of course everything was restored to normal in the end.
So if in the movie everyone began living an alternate time line from the point in time Kirk was born, how do we know that all the characters would still persue their paths into Starfleet? I could go on and on about the nuances of an alternate time line in the movie but the bottom line is that the writers left open the option for fresh new stories for movies or even a television series that are not constrained by the original series and the subsequent series that follow. That idea I liked a lot. The movie was much fun and when it comes out on DVD of course I will add it to my collection.
I thought this video about the Star Trek movie from The Onion was hilarious.

The Terminator, Twitter, and the Economy

How does the Terminator, Twitter, and the economy relate you ask yourself? Well I received a most interesting e-mail from a friend who is into economics and knows how much I love science fiction and thought I would get a kick out of reading the article and I did. The article is relating Skynet, from the Terminator series, which is a computer system that is created for defensive purposes, to Twitter and other social networking/info sites that provide us with quick information and connection to others. How, once again you ask, does this relate to the economy? Well, Skynet in the Terminator became self-aware and viewed humans as a threat to its existence and thus began the quest to wipe out the human race (I believe the Governator of California has become self-aware that he cannot fix the budget problems of that State in the US but that is another post!)
The article, which is found in Marketwatch and I will link at the end of the post, states that Tweeting and Twittering about the internet is making our attention spans shrink with the massive amount of data being downloaded into our minds each day. It makes us forget that, for example, GM would not survive through December '08 without a bailout and bankruptcy would be devastating for all involved to fast forward to June 1st, 2009 and bankruptcy is the best thing in the world for GM and "Skynet", I mean the major networks and online papers are cheering the bankruptcy and telling us the economy is improving!
This entire thing reminds me of an episode of Stargate SG1 called Revisions(2003) in which each member of a very small society that lives in a bubble has a neural interface that keeps each person linked with the computer and when a "revision" is made, all memories of the previous persons or situations are erased as if it never happened. So if we had placed on our heads a neural interface, Skynet, or insert here your favorite government agency, would have just revised the data and we collectively would have forgotten the whole GM debacle.
I love technology and I know this article sounds pessimistic but with high quantities of information available to us these days, it is important to be discriminating in what we read and make sure our long term memories stay intact.
Anyway, I thought the article interesting and worth reading HERE.

Star Trek Mistakes

I found a very well put together video that points out a lot of inconsistent facts presented to us throughout the years in the Star Trek universe. I realize with that much history, things get forgotten or changed for certain reasons. You have to be a die hard Trek fan to really enjoy this ten minute long video, but if you are it is quite amusing. The inconsistent lines or facts are placed next to each other in the video and some are subtle and others obvious. The clips include scenes from all the Star Trek series and some of the Star Trek movies. For example, I wondered why Klingon blood was suddenly red in DS9 when testing to see who was a Changeling or not when in previous movies the blood was a pinkish sort of color. I am glad I am not the only nerd who notices these things but I do love Star Trek.
Enjoy the video!