The Invisible Library

National Socialist Party nominates as it’s Presidential Candidate for 2008, John Taylor Bowles of South Carolina.

Not many Americans realise that there is an American Nazi party, or that they regularly field a candidate in elections. And while they are rather small and general considered to be extremist, even by other Fascist groups, the fact that they are still around in 2007 is a disturbing fact. Not so startling is that their candidate comes from South Carolina.

A few years ago, a South Carolina Baptist Church placed an add in the paper here (in Savannah, GA) advertising a Harry Potter book burning, so it’s no real surprise that American Nazis can find recruits there. Wherever you find book burnings, there’s probably a Nazi somewhere close by, washing the smell of kerosene off his fingers.

And sure, there are extremists all over— a friend of ours is moving to Portland, where they grow serial killers like cantaloupes. But still, it boggles the mind to think that more than sixty years after World War II, there would still be Nazis anywhere, let alone in the American South.

As always, if you really want to give yourself a case of the creeping squees, head on over to David Neiwert’s blog, Orcinus, where he keeps track of Minutemen, Nazis, Republicans and other hate groups.

Sunday’s Episode of BSG wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected and even had a surprise or two that tied it into the main plot. No surprise that it was written by Jane Espenson, of Buffy/Angel credit. I was poking around on Television Without Pity and discovered that the writer of the episode that I hated,”The Woman King” also wrote the one where Saint Helo decides to kill the Infected Cylons in a fit of righteous indignation, thus preventing them being used as biological weapons. The guy seems to think BSG is the Helo show. I wonder if he’s ever sat down and watched any of the previous seasons? It would probably help his future scripts a little to know what show he’s writing for, rather then continuing to turn in episodes form the Universe Next Door, where BSG is just another Star Trek rip off, staring a cardboard cutout wearing Helo’s uniform. As to why Ronald Moore thought that episode was worth shooting rather than just burying is beyond me (which isn’t entirely true. I understand shooting budgets and you have an allotment of episodes that have to delivered by date X and you can’t do an instant rewrite and necessarily get something better. Even Ron Moore admits that the previous two episodes were Black Market week). Listening to the podcast, I get the notion that they had intended for there to be a sub-plot involving the Sagittarans but that it got dropped and added and drooped and added until it eventually backed into the script ass first, which is just clumsy. And I can see what they were shooting for with “Day In The Life,” but it didn’t come off well. which is fine. They can’t all be winners.

Meanwhile, Jane Espenson knows how to float a subplot and make it work. Chief got to play Cesar Chavez, we learned something interesting about Baltar (that may or may not be true– see, ambiguity works!) and it segways into the pending trial and overall thrust of the greater story, about people in horrible situations doing the best and worst they can for reasons that are not always ethical but are always human. Chief got to be a hero, but only after having his family threatened and he never once came off like a petulant super brat like Helo did two episodes back. That’s how to write a show!

James Cameron thinks he’s found the bones of Jesus:

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn’t resurrected –the cornerstone of Christian faith– and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.No, it’s not a re-make of “The Da Vinci Codes’. It’s supposed to be true.

Let’s go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel’s prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn’t associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn’t afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ’s resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter’s wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

I’m not sure how they did DNA tests. But I’m interested to see how this all plays out, if it will be as big as Cameron thinks or if it will just piffle out into nothing.

Update: I don’t know how I could forget to mention that Tom Robbins’ first book, Another Roadside Attraction has the discovery of the mummified corpse of Jesus by a drug dealer turned Vatican Kung Fu instructor as a central plot point.

Also, be sure to check out the Reverend in comments.

One more reason why I need to get the fuck out of Georgia:

The one-page memorandum, marked “From: Representative Ben Bridges,” [R, GA] declared that “tax-supported evolution science” was based on religion and therefore unlawful under the United States Constitution.

It continued, “Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called secular evolution science is the Big Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion.”

“This scenario,” the memorandum stated, “is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings on the mystic ‘holy book’ kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

It’s a neat little package, anti-science wrapped up in dingbattery with a pretty little anti-semitic bow on top. It takes a certain, highly sophisticated type of mind to craft this kind of nonsense. One steeped in old timey Southern bigotry, enculturated ignorance and the complete disregard for tact to be found only in your most privelaged of upper class Gentleman. The sort of fellow who feels free to write this to his staff members without thinking it might be repeated somehow. Because why would the loyal servants ever repeat the talk of their social betters?

Link via Bob Harris.

Archy gives us a great review of Ken Ham’s Creationist Museum, focusing on the story of the Ark:

Ever since the book of Genesis became known to a broad audience, some twenty-four centuries ago, skeptics have questioned the possibility of fitting two of all species of land animals into a single boat. In the early days of the Church, apologists made a careful count of the number of species in the world (arriving at a laughably low number*), made the largest possible estimate of the size of the ark**, and carefully arranged the animals into that space along with enough food for a year and Noah’s family. These methods were sufficient to satisfy the faithful until the Renaissance, when sailors began bumping into entire continents with hundreds, even thousands, of new species. Then scientists began finding hundreds of very large, extinct species. How did they fit into the story?

The Ark story is one of my favorites, as it very concisely illustrates the one legitimate concern that Creationists have: that science will eventually undermine faith by pointing out how idiotic Biblical literalism really is. We simply know too many solid facts about history, biology, anthropology, archeology, history and physics to take these stories at face value. There is no way all the species of the world could fit in an ark that wouldn’t be the size of Cuba. Then their are the dinosaurs:

Dinosaurs, and other extinct animals known only by fossils, create a special problem. Not only do fossils multiply the number of animals that need to fit onto the ark; many of those fossil animals are very large. Some Biblical literalists chose simply to deny that they really existed. Others have suggested that fossils are the remains of a couple of practice creation that God did before making us. That idea has fallen out of favor, because it breaks the rules of taking the Bible at its word. No, the only real answer must be that dinosaurs were on the ark. This is the solution that Ken Ham embraces for his Creation Museum.

He wins point s for imagination, I’ll give him that. But Museums aren’t just  about imagination, and they most definitely aren’t about affirming outmoded beliefs just to quiet those pesky doubts caused by encountering facts.

So, when exactly did throwing people out of the airlock become the answer to everyone’s problems on Battlestar Galactica? Got an uppity Cylon who won’t talk? Airlock him. Traitor of humanity won’t tell you what you want to hear because his fractured mind is too busy coming undone? Threaten to put him in an airlock. Cally and Chief having marital problems? Throw them out the airlock and catch them in a Raptor. It’s like on Star Trek: The Next Generation, when the writers couldn’t figure out a real solution to the made up problem of the week and the catchall answer was to Reverse Polarity. Which sounded cool, until you realized that it meant putting the batteries in backwards. Throwing people out of an airlock is the post 9/11 polarity switch. It sounds hardcore, but accomplishes exactly nothing.

Somehow, the writers forgot what story they were telling. When we last saw a good episode of Battlestar Galactica, the fleet had just narrowly escaped the Algae Planet before the star went Nova. This gave them the clues that allowed them to discover the roadmap to Earth. Starbuck realized she’s been painting signs to Earth since she was little. They had the traitor of humanity and his Cylon Girlfriend in the brig. Helo and Athena had just committed a minor act of treason in order to rescue their magical cancer-curring hybrid baby. Baltar and Caprica Six faced the realization that they were well and truly frakked and being a Cylon, for all it’s cool immortality points, wasn’t going to spare either of them from some major retribution falling on their heads. Oh, and Lee and Kara were busy sabotaging their marriages.

By my count, that’s at least half a dozen solid episodes worth of material right there. Hell, on any other show, that would be about a season and a half. But this is BSG, not any other show. At least until last week’s, “Racism is Bad M’kay?” episode and this week’s, “Let’s Go Play In An Airlock and Talk To Our Dead Ex-Wife” episode. And next week’s “Labor Issues in Spaaaaace!” episode isn’t looking any better.

Seriously, Mr. Moore, did you and the other writers misplace your story notes? This is “Black Market” territory here.

For those not familiar with the episode (or who have mercifully blotted it out), “Black Market” was the one where Apollo tries to woo a hooker, and then rounds out his film noir resume by going into the seedy underbelly of the fleet’s Black Market to figure out who murdered Pegasus’ Captain of the Week. What qualifies a fighter pilot for detective work? Pretty much the same thing that qualifies him to head the legal committee the President wants him to form in order to have Baltar’s trial. So, to review: Apollo is not just a pilot and a daddy’s boy who wants to sleep with his best friend, he also is a detective and lawyer. In “Black Market,” as in “The Woman King” and “A Day In the life,” we met characters that apparently had been there all this time but had never been seen before (and have not been seen since) and learned that the Black Market is so big, bad and vital, that it hasn’t even been mentioned casually again. The writers were clearly bored that week and decided they wanted to work on their Blade Runner meets Homicide: SVU spec script. That’s what we have with these last few episodes.

“The Woman King” and “A Day In the life,” both introduce pivotal characters who have never even been mentioned. The fleet has a civilian Doctor? Who is pals with Col. Tigh? And was on New Caprica? Since when? We knew Admiral Adama had a wife, she was his ex (as conveniently mentioned in the recap, which had to call back all the way to the mini series to find that one) but why is the dead ex-wife now so much more important than, say, finding Earth? I know these are flawed characters but that’s narcissism on a level that truly staggers.

Honestly, are you telling me that Helo has nothing better to do then take on worthless causes like defending Christian Scientists from embittered doctors? Maybe he should be worrying about the fact that his wife can casually incite him to betray his friends. And since when does Helo get to be the righteous hero? Somehow, we are to believe that Admiral Adama has nothing more pressing on his mind than his dead ex-wife and flirting with the President. Never mind the genocidal cyborgs that have been chasing them for the last two years, or his mutinous crew. And what has Tom Zerak been doing for pretty much all of season two? Also, the Cylons, who apparently haven’t bothered the Colonials for 49 days, what are they doing? Last we saw them, they decided to put the entire D’Anna/Three model into deep freeze, which is the equivalent of the US Congress saying, “All you Mormons are a nuisance, what with your unconventional religious fervor, so we’re going to sedate the entire state of Utah indefinitely.” That might be worth some screen time.

Here’s an idea for an episode: While the Cylons deal with the ethical ramifications of boxing 1/7th of their collective soul, the Colonials discover a D’Anna model that escaped and has been hiding out in the fleet. She’s going crazy because she is cut off. She has no connection, no greater purpose. she’s just a person now and she can’t cope. Various people on Galactica just want to airlock her but Helo and Athena try to reason with them. In the end, D’Anna kills herself because she can’t handle being alone. It covers all the areas of the stand alone episodes: racism and survivor guilt but also throws in the existential theme of being separated from God/purpose and allows Helo to be a saint. It also has the added bonus of not introducing anyone new, while moving things forward plot wise. What’s not to love?

Instead, we get Saint Helo and a two dimensional doctor, stereotypical anti-science religious fanatics and the ghost of Mrs. Adama. And next week, it’s Chief doing his Cesar Chavez impression.

I hear in the episode after that, they find a planet full of sharks and haul one up to the ship just so they can throw it out of an airlock and jump it.

I don’t mean to pick apart what is, on the whole, an impeccable and well crafted show. I do it because I love the show, and don’t want to see it devolve into just another lazy sci-fi program. BSG has, since the miniseries, been fearless in its willingness to tackle some real cutting edge themes and ideas and using sci-fi tropes to do so. It’s rooted in the great tradition of speculative fiction, spinning What If scenarios and taking them to their logical conclusion, but transcends the need to do the racism episode, or the sexism episode. Those things are handled in the subtext anyway. All that these inferior story lines that have no relation to the main plot do spin our gears. If I want to see labor disputes and racism handled in a sci-fiish way, there’s a Star Trek rerun on, somewhere.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that season 4 will only be 13 episodes. The writers will have to stay on target and stick to the main themes in order to finish the story by episode 13. There won’t be any room for padding out episodes about standard and well worn sci-fi ideas. Until then, however, we’ll have to find a way to endure the next few episodes, until it’s time to leave us hanging over a cliff, again.

Daylight Savings Time is three weeks earlier this year and Microsoft doesn’t much care:

For three weeks this March and April, Microsoft Corp. warns that users of its calendar programs “should view any appointments as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees.”Wow, that’s sort of jarring — is something treacherous afoot?

Actually, it’s a potential problem in any software that was programmed before a 2005 law decreed that daylight-saving time would start three weeks earlier and end one week later, beginning this year. Congress decided that more early evening daylight would translate into energy savings.

Software created earlier is set to automatically advance its timekeeping by one hour on the first Sunday in April, not the second Sunday in March (that’s March 11 this year).

How simple would it be to coble up a patch for this and offer it for download? Apple fixed it six months ago. I didn’t even know I had already downloaded the fix because they put it in a free security upgrade. And that right there is why Microsoft isn’t doing jack: They can’t find a way to make people pay for a minor computer glitch everyone else fixed for free. So, anyone on a Windows platform will just have to suck it up or run an hour late for most of March.

Everyone out there who got on my case for being a Firefox evangelist, take note. This is why IE7 is a piece of shit. Microsoft is counting on it’s users being too dumb to realize that IEs supposed innovations, like tabs and RSS and a functioning Web 2.0 interface, aren’t actually bonuses you have to pay for. They are free as is every other browser out there, and were available years before Microsoft bothered to throw out some half-assed piece of shit with a wildly inflated price tag on it.

Microsoft wants your money. Once they have it, you’re on your own.

Um, what?:

Seriously, Marvel, WHAT THE FUCK? At what point did Spider-Man having radioactive sperm ever seem like a good idea? At what point did anyone even think about Spider-Man having radioactive sperm? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this ever saw print, I cannot believe that no-one at Marvel thought that having a comic where Spider-Man tells the corpse of his wife - because, yeah, I meant to say that, he’s talking to the corpse of his dead wife - that he killed her with his special radioactive spider-spunk was ANYTHING that should ever be allowed to appear in a comic. And that’s before you even get to the continuation of his admission: “Like a spider, crawling up inside your body and laying a thousand eggs of cancer… I killed you.”

I can’t really improve on “radioactive spider-spunk.” Wow.

Today is the 198th birthday of arguably the most important human to have ever lived, Charles Darwin, who’s work changed the world for the better by providing us with the language and theoretical models to understand the origin of life in the universe. Think about that for a moment. Before Darwin, there were evolutionary theories but none of them were grounded in science and all were hindered by their subservience to religious dogma and superstition. Darwin was the first person to describe how we evolved and continue to do so. The Theory of evolution by natural selection has resulted in numerous fields of scientific advancement, from genetics to history and even geology. No longer do we have to sift through the bones of our ancestors, looking for giants and dragons and shoehorning them into the fairy tale models described by our primitive ancestors. We have access to the truth. And it’s all because of the work of one man.