Welcome to oldsville, population: Evil Bender June 22, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, News and politics.add a comment
I just watched a commercial for the new Punch Out game, where a father plays with his kid after talking about how much he loved the original game growing up.
Intellectually, I knew that those of us who grew up with the NES are now old enough to have kids rediscovering our childhood classics. Practically, though, it makes me feel very, very old.
Now if only we could get a new Killer Instinct game!
“Uncomfortable Plot Summaries”: Red Dawn April 17, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, Humor.1 comment so far
A friend of mine sent me a link to this list of “Uncomfortable Plot Summaries.” They’re often funny, sometimes quite insightful, and occasionally extremely offensive (you’ve been warned). But one of them is absolutely perfect:
RED DAWN: Despite shock-and-awe tactics, a superior occupying force is no match for a tenacious sect of terrorist insurgents.
Hehindeedy.
Congratulations on being the creator of a new Evil Plan ™! April 11, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging.add a comment
Your objective is simple: World Domination.
Your motive is a little bit more complex: Love (Yes, it works)
Stage One
To begin your plan, you must first expose a rich and powerful ceo. This will cause the world to sense a grave disturbance in the force, unsettled by your arrival. Who is this evil genius? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good as a dark gunslinger?
Stage Two
Next, you must seize control of the moon (ooh, tides!). This will all be done from a obsidian citadel, a mysterious place of unrivaled dark glory. Upon seeing this, the world will gibber like madmen, as countless hordes of alien life forms hasten to do your every bidding.
Stage Three
Finally, you must prepare your arcane ritual, bringing about an unending cacophony of screams. Your name shall become synonymous with fuzzy bunnies, and no man will ever again dare interrupt your sentences. Everyone will bow before your mystical abilities, and the world will have no choice but to make you their new god.
Okay, theists, impress me! April 6, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, Religion, Science.4 comments
I’ve been hearing a lot of discussions recently about whether “fine tuning” or Kalam other such considerations make it more or less likely that there is a God. I must admit to being singularly unimpressed with these debates, in large part because I’m unconvinced that there is any relevance to the point. Even if I were to be convinced that the fine tuning of the Universe demands a creator, what is the significance of that? What does it predict about our Universe? What does it tell me about what exists outside or before the universe, or how the universe fits into any larger structures that may exist?
In short, if there really is a being that created the Universe, demonstrating that being is likely to exist should do more than be the basis of an increasingly flimsy theological house of cards, in which I’m expected to find compelling a chain of logic that begins before the Big Bang and ends with the deity of your choice welcoming my worship.
To be clear, I find the foundation of such a claim to be flimsy, and every bit of scaffolding afterward increasingly flimsy, until I’m meant to find it obvious that God gave his Perfect Unchangeable World both to a group of nomadic bronze-age worshipers and to the writers of King James 1611. So don’t tell me that accepting the possibility of the a God means that I must worship Jebus. Tell me what I can expect in a universe that has a god; tell me what predictions that makes.
Most importantly, tell me why believing that God somehow explains life, the universe and everything is any better as an hypothesis than “magic man done it.” Because I’ve done a lot of reading and thinking and I honestly don’t see the chain of causality that proceeds as follows:
1. the universe implies a creator
2. ???
3. Profit!
Obviously, that’s a bit glib. But God hasn’t proved to be a worthwhile hypothesis in terms of anything else that we’ve learned about the universe: from gravity to supercomputers to star formation to quantum mechanics, everything we know about the universe is in spite of people insisting that God Is The Answer. Theists can put together elaborate philosophical arguments for God all they want, and they’re welcome to do so, but none of those arguments seem to me to offer anything testable, or to do anything but shut down further inquiry into the nature of reality.
So here’s my challenge, theists, offered in good faith: explain to me how belief in a creator (NOT in Your Deity of Choice) offers anything to our understanding of reality not offered by remaining at least agnostic on the question of what, if anything, created the universe. Be specific, and argue in good faith, and I’ll do my best to engage you with as much seriousness as you engage me.
And for the love of Thor, don’t waste my time! If I’m not convinced there’s any reason to believe in any god, quoting your favorite holy book at me won’t get you anywhere.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Evil Bender converts to Young Earth Creationism April 1, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, Religion, Science.6 comments
That’s right, folks! I’m giving up my unjustifiable defense of Evilution, and from here on this blog will promote the obvious truth: the world was created about 6,000 years ago, along with all species, by the all-loving, all-mighty Jehovah.
I realize that up to this point I’ve only claimed to believe in Darwinism because it allowed me to avoid answering for my Sins. I’m much happier now that I’ve quit running from God and admitted what’s obvious: that humanity is His Special Creation, with absolutely no relationship to monkeys. Yes, it was all a cheep veneer designed to conceal my moral turpitude from myself and others.
I’ll be following Biblical Morality from here on out, and I envite you to join me.
Bonus points for the commenter who can successfully guess what led me to renounce my Godless Scientism.
[UPDATE: LQ (who may have had an unfair advantage) was closest. The thing that convinced me, of course, was that we've never seen a crockaduck:
Evil Bender’s Top 10 Buffy Moments March 22, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in arts and culture, Blogging.1 comment so far
LQ and I just finished watching the entirety of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. I’d seen the whole thing before, but it was LQ’s first time through.
Rewatching the series was a real pleasure, and more than justified my decision to own the entire thing on DVD. Buffy remains my favorite dramatic series in TV history. Which brings me to the topic of this post: the most memorably Buffy moments of all time (I thought about calling them my favorite moments, but many of them are actually hard to watch: they’re just incredibly well executed, so “memorable” it is). These are, of course, purely subjective, and I hope you’ll leave yours in the comments. SPOILERS below the fold.
Thursday Music Thread February 5, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, music.add a comment
Still no politics here (unless you count deep thoughts, and obviously I don’t). So, instead, ZEP!
Damn Straight, Onion:
Consider this an open thread, although anti-Zep comments are strictly forbidden.
I’ve had it February 4, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, News and politics.add a comment
I have really, honestly had it. I’m deeply frightened over what I’m seeing: two weeks into the Obama administration, we have the media parroting the narrative that we need a more “bipartisan” stimulus bill, while Republicans claim the government can’t create jobs, demand more tax cuts (as they do for any given economic and political situation), and Democrats are effectively pinned in by Blue Dogs who are demanding god-knows-what. Meanwhile, the economy continues its slide towards a truly brutal recession–or worse. Two wars continue overseas with no end in sight. The country is hurting, bad, and we’re getting our talking points from talk radio while the Dems are AWOL from the media debate. Paul Krugman battles valiantly for sanity, but he is a lone voice in a crowd.
And worst of all, the MSM has already forgotten that the Republicans spent the past eight years proudly setting the world ablaze just to watch it burn. The same idiots who got us into this mess are ensuring we remain in it as a cynical political ploy to attempt to regain power. On their watch they attempted to prove wise their ideological hatred for government by ensuring government doesn’t work, and now they’re claiming to be the responsible ones, and those who control the narrative are buying it.
And still the world burns.
Others have covered this better than I could hope to, as my readers know. I’m so fucking pissed off–though not surprised–that we’ve responded to a great moment of hope and national pride by resorting to the very worst things about ourselves.
You won’t find any political posts around here for a while, at least until I cool down.
Wake me when there’s a hint of sanity in the discourse. Assuming I haven’t already said “screw ‘em all,” and hauled my ass to Canada.
I’m fucking done with it.
A particularly fun anti-abortion comment February 1, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, reproductive rights, wingnuts.1 comment so far
I’ve moved this up to its own post because it is so freaking hilarious. I’ve approved “Thomas’”–who is quite likely rightdialogue under a different name–comment for two reasons: the first is that is references the hilarious font of poorly argued wingnuttery that is bighollywood, and second because the story is so transparently false. We have it all–a self-described “Lothario,” lots of reference to the narrator’s potency, his bevvy of girlfriends, the dangers of promiscuity that are somehow always titillating, evil abortion doctors, abortion as birth control (because who wouldn’t prefer to pay to have an invasive procedure instead of using contraceptives), a vaguely defined “spiritual awakening.” If it only included a reference to child-murder by secret cabals of Satanists, it would be the perfect wingnut fairy tale.
There’s even the obligatory Things Were Better in the Old Days With Forced Child Birth and Shotgun Weddings.
Thanks, Thomas, for bring to my attention a hilariously awful bit of wingnut fiction. I’ve got a strong case of the chuckles now!
Superbowl Prediction January 30, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, sports.4 comments
Steelers 23-17.
…which, oddly, is the prediction I heard Jay Mariotti make, even as I was in the process of finishing this post.
My Superbowl plan is to have a couple friends over, and eat food prepared with green chile. What’s yours?
