gdp's Comments

The Clever Badger : An Autumn Project

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:44:50 +0000

I've got no particular problem with the odd sex scene here and there - it's not as if I'd go into excruciating detail about them. I think I may have a winner if I can locate "Evil Behind You". It's impressive 1.4 out of 10 rating at IMDB shows promise.

The Clever Badger : An Autumn Project

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:35:46 +0000

I haven't seen that one, although if I remember correctly that was made during the height of Costner's ego. I'll look into that one.

The Clever Badger : An Autumn Project

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 01:26:50 +0000

Which version? There are at least two versions of Snow Queen - one from 2002 and one from 2007.

The Clever Badger : An Autumn Project

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 01:25:40 +0000

You've got it backward. October is reserved for horror movies, meaning that I'm going to review only horror movies in October, but I may also review horror movies at other times. Most folks only find Deliverance interesting for Ned Beatty's scene with the hillbilly. I'll review that right here: Gut wrenching, violent, and it totally justifies everything the protagonists do in the rest of the film.

The Clever Badger : The Most Dangerous Names on the Internet

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:01:53 +0000

Heh. At the time I was in school, most people just used the computer labs. Very few folks had their own PCs. I always tend to be somewhat skeptical of the numbers they report in things like this. The key, I think, is the "some form" caveat, since "malware" can include anything from a tracking cookie to a trojan that actively looks for financial records, depending on what expert you ask. Lately I've been getting a lot of pop-ups served from various websites for bogus security programs. You've probably seen them - full-page scare-ware screens with a lot of red text warning you that your computer is under attack and you REALLYNEEDTODOWNLOADOURSUPEREFFECTIVEPROTECTIONPROGRAM NOW!!!! They've become almost as common as Russian comment spam...

The Clever Badger : The Institute for Human Continuity

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:22:06 +0000

My background is Catholic. In my experience, Catholics have attach no particular significance to any concept of end times, and in point of fact I was taught pretty early on that the Book of Revelation was basically not much more than a recasting of the Book of Daniel with Christian overtones (or, less delicately, an attempt to rescue the failed "predictions" of Daniel by relocating them to a later time). I first started hearing end times talk in relations to the writings of Nostradamus during the early 1980s, when apparently quite a few folks were trying to tie those writings to images in Revelation. I found it strange then and I find the whole concept strange now.

The Clever Badger : Nothing Says \"Weekend!\" Like a Little Dental Surgery

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:48:45 +0000

When I have the second round done later in the year, I'll see if I can bring in an official photographer to more effectively document the procedure. I always find visual aids very useful when explaining things like this...

The Clever Badger : Nothing Says \"Weekend!\" Like a Little Dental Surgery

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:32:16 +0000

By and large the worst part of the whole process was not being able to clearly know what was going on. With nothing to do but sit there letting my imagination wander, I probably mentally made it worse than it really was. The swelling and discomfort has abated quite a bit today, which is good, although it's still difficult to eat or drink. As I mentioned, there's another round of this on the calendar a little later in the year. I'd originally wanted her to do both at once, and I'm glad now that she stood her ground and refused.

The Clever Badger : Movie Review: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:54:14 +0000

Actually, I made a mistake when I said "impressionist". I should have said "expressionist", and several films, notably The Golem and Nosferatu actually fit in the category (in addition to Caligari.) My bad for posting while sleepy.

The Clever Badger : Movie Review: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:28:18 +0000

I love bad movies. My brothers and I have a long history of watching bad movies, and between the three of us probably have seen some of the worst. Sometimes it's refreshing to write about things that aren't likely to be polarizing. Just about everyone has watched and heckled a movie at some point, after all. As we move into the fall, I'm planning to review some of the classic Universal Monster films as well as some of the great German Impressionist horror films from the 1920's, so if you've got any requests that fit into those categories, let me know.

The Clever Badger : It Must Be a Slow News Day

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:51:16 +0000

Films like the 1916 classic, Prehistoric Poultry? It's an easy trap to fall into, really. Before I read Bakker's Dinosaur Heresies, I never really gave much thought to the ecology of dinosaurs. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that ancient dinosaur predators, prey, and scavengers would behave similarly to modern predators, prey, and scavengers. The niches they occupy, of course, have very similar constraints on them.

The Clever Badger : Woodpeckers and Evolution - Part 1 (Edited)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:39:52 +0000

Been there and done that. However, the woodpeckers aren't quite as bad as the flock of Canada geese that winters in the pond behind my house.

The Clever Badger : Home Project

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:32:04 +0000

Stevie, my friend, my eyes were beginning to well with tears during the project... The next major interior project is likely to be putting in some hardwood in the living room. Precise measurements and nail guns. What's the worst that could happen?

The Clever Badger : Jimmy Carter Gains My Respect (Updated)

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Joshua - I'm not familiar with the paper you mention, but I'd be interested in reading it if you can point me in the right direction. I think there are some interesting dynamics active here. (And I realize that I run a risk of overgeneralizing.) I suspect there is a layer of seminary-trained people that are aware of the last few hundred years of scholarship, but choose to ignore and/or reject it. (Obviously denominations that don't draw their clergy from seminaries don't fit here.) Below that, I think, is the great majority of church membership that has little or no idea that textual transmission is even an active area of study, let alone that it obviates any meaningful notions of inerrancy and literality. I imagine that it's very difficult to accept the scholarship if one has been raised with a strong emphasis on literal and inerrant interpretations of the Bible. I personally wasn't, so it's very challenging for me to try to understand that perspective.

The Clever Badger : Experimenting

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:34:44 +0000

I'm not completely happy with this one, actually. The old scheme was becoming hard on my eyes, so I'm looking for something that eases that problem. Unfortunately, none of the available WordPress themes that I've found have completely answered the mail, so I suspect this is going to end up with me biting the bullet and writing my own theme.

The Clever Badger : Home Project

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:27:14 +0000

I could have put "scrub toilet gunk off hands" after just about every step. I'm sort of OCD that way... No blisters from the sawing, since the ones I got from digging out all the shrubs in front of my house have calloused over.

The Clever Badger : Keeping Things in Context

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:06:31 +0000

Religious discussions of various stripes are certainly plagued by missing context - no question about it. (I'm recalling your post about quote mines from a while back.) I see a lot of blogs and discussion forums stressing context, but I'm not convinced that the message is getting out as widely as it needs to. I try to stress it in the Sunday School class I teach, but 13 and 14 year-olds tend to tune out about 15 minutes in, except for the one kid who get's very attentive when I bring up the story about Elisha and the bears.

The Clever Badger : Risky Business

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:45:37 +0000

Talking about chem sets from 40 years ago starts to hit a little too close to home, but that's a good point. One of the things that I think has gotten lost today is the notion of assumed risk - basically the idea that if I choose to do something that has some inherent danger, then I accept the consequences of things go bad. Admittedly, the left side of the assumed risk equation requires that the consumer know the risks he's being asked to assume. It would be nice to see people become smarter consumers, but that doesn't seem to be the way things are trending.

The Clever Badger : Psychic Frauds Network

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:46:56 +0000

A fine bit of film making, was Dragonslayer. But yeah, the business of not trying to prove themselves is absurd, and largely self defeating. They haven't thought it through, though. Here's why. Psychics claim that their abilities are sensitive to the negative thoughts of skeptics, and explain their failures in tests as a consequence of that sensitivity. But skeptics are generally skeptical all the time - in fact I'm having some pretty negative thoughts about psychics even as I write this - so it stands to reason that whatever bad mojo we're producing is out there all the time. What follows from that is that the deleterious effects of skeptical thought should always be hindering their abilities regardless of whether there's a formal test going on or not. I just wonder how many of these tools are deliberately running a con and how many genuinely believe they've got a gift. The fact that the Sylvian Brownes and James Van Praaghs of the world aren't beating down the doors to claim James Randi's cash suggests that many know they're fakes.

The Clever Badger : Views on Accomodationism

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 23:01:14 +0000

The problem is that it can't work unless it works the other way too, when religion isn't deliberately antagonistic to science You're spot-on, and that's a tough nut. People like Ken Miller appear to balance the two fairly well, in my opinionl. As near as I can tell, he keeps his science fairly well compartmentalized. It's the people like Ken Ham, William Dembski, Kent Hovind, and such that make things tough, and the way they often do it is to redefine science in a way that allows them to make the absurd claim that they're using the same facts as "mainstream" science, but evaluating those facts to a different conclusion. The sleight-of-hand is that they start with a presupposition that the Bible is true, and force the data to conform to that. It's not science, it's conclusionism. (Coincidentally, James McGrath has a post up from his archives that relates to this issue.) A problem (not the only problem) is that a lot of folks with conservative religious viewpoints (Christians always seem to get called out on this, but this really applies more broadly) have been taught that science works like that - you can pick your presuppositions and evaluate data in light of those - but it doesn't. You have to let the observations lead you. If you're not accustomed to thinking that way, I can imagine that it would be very difficult to start doing it, particularly if it means going counter to things you've been taught since childhood. And that's the part that I think often gets lost in discussions of accomadtionism. It's very easy to sit back and say that someone should discard some or all of their worldview, but it's much harder to actually do that. Thanks for the comment, and please keep them coming.