Single Frame Stories Week 13 "simple"

Single Frame Stories, is telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "Simple" 

   
 My Doctor asked if there was anything much going on in my mind.




Yes, I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. - Keith Richards

Single Frame Stories Week 12 "Genius"

Single Frame Stories, telling a story in a single frame.

Each Saturday we’ll offer a new word or phrase for a prompt. Participants will each create a Single Frame Story based on the prompt of the week, consisting of a single image with up to 140 optional characters of text. The image can be a photo, screen shot, drawing or painting. The text can be integrated into the image or used as a caption or title.

This week, the prompt is "Genius"

In ancient Roman religion, the genius was the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing - Wikipedia 

Picture taken at Bentham Forest at Elven Mist 

genio huius loci (to the genius of this place) - Roman saying

Deviant Art from late 2012 slightly NSFW

Here is my latest batch of Commissions mostly from Deviant Art. (except the first one)

FYI the Boob pictures are down the bottom if you feel the need to scroll right down.

                                This picture was done by the marvelous Strawberry Singh
 

 

 As done by xoxkari

As done by erunei

As done by xzeosoulx

As done be Forunth, it's actually an ACEO, a tiny card 2,5x3,5inch

This is the wonderfully talented Whiskey Monday as done by nojitsu

Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it's quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid. Rita Rudner

Single Frame Stories Week 11 "Surrender"

The theme for this weeks  Single frame story  is Surrender

Strip! Your chainmail gets caught in my teeth. My buckles stuck! can u help? I said. Sure smirked Dragon, as he impaled his head on my pike



"Beware, ye, of the dragon's lair, for ye are juicy medium rare."

Book review: Nun and Dragon

I don't usually review fiction, actually I don't normally read short fiction at all, but I decided to try something a bit different from Foxspirit mostly due to the not so subtle suggestions from Adele on twitter, and I'm glad I did.

It's a collection of 23 short stories all themed along with the books title, being  "Nun and Dragon" and is available on the kindle from Amazon or in other formats from Wizards Tower

If you have ever lived in Britain then "Nun and Dragon" will  almost certainly make you think of a country pub, much like the name "The Vat and Fiddle" in Nottingham or "The Goat and Tricycle" in Bournemouth. I seriously suspect the many of the Nuns in this book would be more at home in "The Wicked Lady" in Wheathamstead.

It's starts off with The Ballad of Gilrain by Sarah Cawkwell , and it sets the tone for many of the following stories. As I was reading though the stories I was reminded of an old 80s TV show called Wizards and Warriors  it was short lived, but rather funny.

Love Airships? If so Journey to Blackfire Keep by Colin F Barnes will make you happy, and maybe the start of  SteamDragonPunk.

The stories vary from fantasy, Science Fiction, those set in the late 1900s, a Western, with some based in contemporary times.

My very favorite (probably no surprise to the books editor) is The Sound of Latex by Peter Ray Allison. Can we have more of Willow please?  If not, at least some other tales of Bhikkhuni of the Holy Order of Sing Lung?

So if you like Nuns or Dragons, or them both together, it's certainly worth a read.


“Never laugh at live dragons.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

Have Catholic police in Victoria been tipping of the Church about investigations?

                                                  
The Age newspaper has been investigating the child abuse stories from the Catholic Church in Victoria Australia for some time. Not surprising really as it's a big story, and getting bigger.Currently the Victorian parliament has a Child Abuse investigation going on and hearing will start on the 19th  October

This article from The Age here is very worrying:-

The Age also reported earlier this month that a senior police investigator had told victims of a suspected Catholic paedophile of his ''grave'' concerns that his investigation into their alleged abuser was being derailed and that ''pro-church police members'' might have interfered in his inquiry.

Can you imagine that! Members of the Police force interfering with an investigation into the Catholic Church.  Please, also note it's hearsay, and includes the word "might". Of course on Sunday morning, Policeman goes to church......has a bit of a chat with the priest....


The letter from Waller Legal to the Child Abuse Investigation is particulary worth reading, here is a short extract:-

In a pastoral letter dated 1 July 2010 Archbishop Denis Hart said that 300
complaints had been dealt with in the Melbourne Archdiocese Response
process, an in-house sexual abuse complaints process. It seems that not one
of these was referred to the police.

I know this because recently the Victorian Police have criticised the Archdiocese of Melbourne for not eliciting the assistance of the police or referring allegations of sexual abuse for investigation, despite requests by the police to do so. Denis Hart has said that the 300 complaints related to 60 priests in the Melbourne Archdioceses.

Think about that for a moment: Sixty different priests in Melbourne are allegedto have committed sexual offences. There are at least 300 people who report being victims - these are just the matters that have been reported within the Archdiocese of Melbourne. Some individual victims have reported to the police, but the Church has not taken this initiative.

I know of no other community group, school, business, company, government agency or volunteer organisation who could preside over such astonishing and horrifying statistics and yet consider themselves to be above the law or somehow separate to it. Any responsible CEO of a company, the president of a football or social club or the manager of a community group would seek the assistance of the police to investigate known or suspected criminal activity of such a scale.

Click on the video below to see a short movie about how the Catholic Church has historically had a problem with child rape.

Here is the  website of  Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations

A PDF of the police submission to the Child Abuse Investigation

A PDF of the Waller Legal submission to the Child Abuse Investigation

Oh..This is new to me http://www.verschueren.at/International_sexual_abuse_newsmonitor.html

In some circumstances the Church has alerted the alleged offender to an a police investigation. This happened as recently as 2009. In this instance it was evident that by the time police had arrived  that evidence had been removed or destroyed -Police Submission to Child Abuse Investigation

Single Frame Stories Week 10 "Driven"

For this weeks Single Frame Story, the topic is "Driven"

As I mounted the steps with my ticket I remarked "I don't care where it goes, as long as I get driven out of this hell hole, and never see it again!"


“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

Bad Faith Award 2012 nominations open

It's time again for the New Humanist Bad Faith award nominations, last year it was won by the MP Nardine Dorries due to her anti-choice position. Of course have

You can enter by emailing editor@newhumanist.org.uk , leave a message on the website or tweet @NewHumanist

I think Baroness Sayeeda Warsi  is in as a good chance for the winner this year. 



"I think Sarah Palin is amazing. I totally admire her." - Nadine Dorries MP (New Statesman, 30 September 2010) 

UK Science Bloggers Prize 2012

                                                          

The UK based "Good Thinking Society" has a prize for a UK based Science Blog, get in quick with your nominations, as I am sure I read nominations close on the 15 October.

First prize is £1000 with 3 runners up of £100.

Nominees must be UK-based bloggers and featured blog entries must have been published in 2012.


They also have the yearly Golden Duck awards for UK quacks, so feel free to send in your favourite :-

Good Thinking will be awarding The Golden Duck each year to the person (or organisation) that has supported or practiced pseudoscience in the most ludicrous, dangerous, irrational or irresponsible manner. The decision is based on nominations by the public, followed by short listing and then finally a vote among skeptic groups.
The award will have different criteria each year, and for our first outing we have decided to offer a lifetime achievement award open for any quack from any discipline – the winner may come from medical quackery, or indeed politics, business, TV and media and beyond.

“The bottom line is that blogging is like sex. You can’t fake it. You can’t fake passion. You can’t fake wanting to engage with the public. If you do, it will ultimately be an unsatisfying experience for both the blogger and their readers.” - Kevin Anderson