Nerd Olympics – February 20-21st 2010

Local ShufflingDeaders can check out the Event Guide for the 2010 Nerd Olympics.

Shameful Human of the Week: Rex Fowler

Alert the internet: crazed Scientologist (allegedly) kills his business partner.

This week’s Shameful Human is Rex Fowler, he’s a Scientologist from Adams County, Colorado, and he’s been charged with murdering his former business partner, Thomas Ciancio. The two ended their working relationship in November when Ciancio quit over Fowler taking $200 000 of their company’s money without permission and giving it to what his arrest warrant affidavit describes as “a church or some type of charity.” Ciancio was killed when he returned to his former workplace to receive a severance payment of $9 900.

The case against Mr. Fowler appears solid. The murder weapon used was purchased by his son, who listed his address as 1413 L. Ron Hubbard Way, Los Angeles when it was bought. His wife, Janet Fowler, also attempted to cover up evidence in the case by trying to reclaim a mysterious briefcase belonging to her husband confiscated by police. She claimed “It is important to me, my church, and it is religious material and I want it now!”

Further demonstrating the total madness which Scientology followers suffer from, Janet Fowler told police “Even if you looked at it and read it, you would not understand anything in it… because it is way above a normal person and you would not know what it meant.” That sounds to me, an amateur Scientology critic, like the briefcase contained scripture intended only for those who had paid their way to a high level within the church.

Rex Fowler is most assuredly a Shameful Human, he took money from his business and used it to support the Church of Scientology without his partner’s permission, and is likely also a murderer. Still, I can’t help feel a little bad for the guy and his family. They have obviously been fully suckered into the church’s wacky belief system, and now must suffer the consequences of what their cult/religion has led them to do.

[source]

Gamers 4 Croydon emerges as Australian gamer rights party

Australia is not the first-world paradise we all thought it was, but actually a backwater dictatorship ruled by moralizing old lunatics.

A new political party called Gamers 4 Croydon has emerged to fight for an overhaul of the games classification which keeps the Aussie gamer down, and battle king of crazy South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. Atkinson is a major opponent of the introduction of an equivalent to the ESRB’s “Mature 17+” rating in Australia, where the highest rating currently stands at “MA15+.” The result is that Australians don’t get to play games that would otherwise fall into that “17+” classification.

G4C has been fully registered by the Australian Electoral Commission, and will now run candidate Kat Nicholson directly against Atkinson in his Croydon seat. The party will also be running Chris Prior as their candidate for the Legislative Council.

Gamers 4 Croydon, your work is truly inspiring. I had no Australia was such repressive place, and you have Shufflingdead’s full endorsement.

[source]

The system works: children charged with exploiting themselves

The ongoing and ludicrous moral panic over pedophilia and child pornography has some strange consequences. Due to the ever tightening grip of laws in the United States “protecting” children, two middle school students have been charged with child exploitation and possession of child pornography for sending naked photos of themselves to each other. The kids used their cell phones, so this case also falls under that newly birthed panic, media darling “sexting.”

The two pedos were caught when the 13-year-old girl’s phone rang in class and her teacher confiscated it. Apparently, the images were discovered when the girl cried she would get in trouble for having “dirty pictures” on the phone.

If convicted, the charged couple may have to register as sex offenders. Good thing, too, it would be far too great a risk to allow these kids near themselves again. Truly, laws preventing kids from exploring their sexuality by any means, even one as safe as the sharing of photographs is “thinking of the children.”

[source]