stupidity

People With No Understanding of Fantasy Probably Shouldn't Review It

Dana Hunter5 Comments

I have now, like every other fantasy fan with tits on the planet, read Ginia Bellafonte’s risible review of HBO’s adaptation of A Game of Thrones.

I’ve spent most of the week now trying to determine which planet she’s from.  I’m still not sure.  It hasn’t got the same color sky as mine, and the fact that she seems to think rape, incest and other varieties of less-than-romantic sex are thrown in to Martin’s harrowingly gritty books just to give the ladies something to love frankly concerns me.  I have to question the psychological health of a woman who thinks that’s the sort of erotica women go for en masse.  But never mind that.  What’s even more ridiculous than her bass-ackwards ideas of why GOT will have sex scenes is her insistence that Martin’s epic is somehow about global warming.

Yes.  Really.  Here, for those who don’t want to give her the satisfaction of another page view, is her take on the whole thing:

Here the term green carries double meaning as both visual descriptive and allegory. Embedded in the narrative is a vague global-warming horror story. Rival dynasties vie for control over the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros — a territory where summers are measured in years, not months, and where winters can extend for decades. 
How did this come to pass? We are in the universe of dwarfs, armor, wenches, braids, loincloth. The strange temperatures clearly are not the fault of a reliance on inefficient HVAC systems. Given the bizarre climate of the landmass at the center of the bloody disputes — and the series rejects no opportunity to showcase a beheading or to offer a slashed throat close-up — you have to wonder what all the fuss is about. We are not talking about Palm Beach. 

I have to wonder why Blogger doesn’t offer Comic Sans as an option, because any passages quoted from Ms. Bellafonte’s review deserve to be in said font.  Who here has read Martin’s series and thought it was about global fucking warming?   She obviously hasn’t.  Read the series, I mean.  And after that bizarre last sentence, which upon fourth reading still makes no sense, she drops the global warming question all together and instead asks why the show’s even on HBO.

Because, Ms. Bellafonte.  It is an epic series conducive to adaptation, popular with huge swathes of male, female and otherwise-gendered people.  It’s such a gripping story that even those of us who hated it – literally hated reading it – had to keep reading, and are ready to beat George R.R. Martin bloody (sparing his hands and skull) if he once again delays the release of the next book.  Some people at HBO, David Benioff chief among them, believed in its potential and saw the project through.  And HBO stands to rake in the cold hard cash, because, and this is important, not everyone is a sneering, fantasy-hating, too-avante-gard-to-live genius-in-her-own-mind lackwit with culturally piss-poor female friends such as yourself, Ms. Bellafonte.

I mean, seriously.  Not one of your female friends could clue you in?  You have never met one single, solitary woman who would prefer The Hobbit over the latest navel-gazing based-on-the-author’s-pathetic-excuse-for-a-life schlock offered up by book clubs that only seem to exist in order to make people who like good books cry?  Not even one?  Do you even leave your house?  Do you even talk to other women?  I have to wonder.

You apparently belong to that pathetic subset of the human population who think it makes them unbearably hip to bash fantasy at every possible opportunity.  You see armor and dwarves, and you’re in instant sneer mode, too busy looking down your nose to look beneath, at questions of what it means to be human and what morality is and how twisted society can be that would make your hair curl.  Fantasy can be brutal.  Fantasy can be uncompromising.  And it can make us think in ways we never would have been able to think if the issues had been presented through any other medium.  Unfortunately, it can’t get through to the likes of you, Ms. Bellafonte, because you seem to be operating under the assumption that this isn’t something good girls should like.  Your fucking loss.  And believe me, it is a loss.

Upon rumination, I can only come to the conclusion that your review is the result of a pathological hatred of fantasy combined with a serious lack of insight into the vast majority of your fellow females.  It seems to me to be a cry for help.  You should meet some new people.  People like me and my lady friends, who think nothing of spending an evening geeking out over shows like Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, and (oh, yes) Game of Thrones.  Speak to women who would move to Middle Earth in one second flat if given half the chance.  Listen to women whose bookshelves groan under the weight of more fantasy tomes than can be listed in one small blog post.  Your sample size has been skewed by the fact your head has been firmly lodged up your posterior.  There are legions of female fans of fantasy and science fiction.  And two things you should have realized before penning something so incredibly stupid from start-to-finish:

1. We don’t appreciate being told we don’t exist.  And

2.  Trying to review a genre you’re clueless about leads only to humiliation.

Keep this in mind the next time you plan to heap scorn upon a show you’re reviewing.  Especially if HBO decides to do a Thursday Next series.  Because, while Martin’s fans can be brutal, Fford ffans are just downright terrifying.

P.S. I get the impression from your article that you must have obtained a college education of some description.  Were I you, I’d be asking for my money back. 

For further entertaining dissections of one of the dumbest reviews in the history of television reviews, see:

George R.R. Martin’s brilliant response (and delightful shout-out to his fangirls).

Annalee Newitz explains why the show’s actually targeted at women only.

Geek With Curves demonstrates why you should not piss off someone whose next tattoo is inspired by Joss Whedon.

Margaret Hartmann demonstrates the art of the short, sharp smackdown.

And our own Stephanie Szvan digs in, plus bonus story!

I’m sure I’ve missed about five gajillion.  Pop your faves into the comments, and/or any ranting you feel moved to.  Epic length comments welcome.  We are talking about fantasy here.

People With No Understanding of Fantasy Probably Shouldn't Review It
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So You Know Exactly How God Did It, Then?

Dana Hunter

You know, sometimes it seems like USA has come to stand for “United States of Appalling Ignorance.”  A lot of people in this country need to read an improving book.  And I’m not talking about the Bible.  That one only seems to improve people’s ability to be smug about their appalling ignorance.


MTHellfire found this bit of outstanding fuckwittery spouted by Bill O’Reilly and took him to the woodshed over it (h/t):

“Tide goes in and tide goes out…you can’t explain that.” Bill O’Reilly recently told Dave Silverman of American Atheists, during a recent airing on Fox News as they debated the integrity of religion.

After her head hit her desk, she went on to advise that, yes, actually, Billo, we can explain how the tide goes in and out.  I’d just like to add that Billo needs to avail himself of a book I recently read, Beyond the Moon.  We are so able to explain tides that entire pop sci books can be written on the subject.

MTHellfire went on to quote, in its full misspelled glory, a screed she’d been subjected to on Facebook, wherein the correspondent (and I use this term loosely) advised that the reason people don’t trust scientists is that they can’t explain where the first speck of dirt came from, but they can tell you how life was created.

Wrong wrong wrong, and not just because the original had enough grammatical errors to make an English teacher contemplate a home lobotomy in an effort to escape the pain.  Scientists can explain how life evolved.  They’re not yet sure how it originated, but they’ve got some promising ideas.  They’re pretty certain it did not include a large bearded deity poofing the whole thing into existence.

As far as the speck of dirt goes, any decent book on cosmology can clue you in.  Dirt is formed of elements.  Elements are forged in stars.  And so on, all the way back to the Big Bang.  So yes, Facebook babbler, scientists can explain where the first speck of dirt came from.  At length, and with equations, if you like.

But it’s not like the “God did it” crowd is likely to listen to the evidence.  If they do, their eyes will all too likely glaze over, and they will take this as a sign: they cannot understand it, therefore scientists don’t really understand it, ergo Jesus!  So let me just turn this around a bit.  I like turning tables.  It adds interest to a room.

Here’s my reply to the “Scientists can’t explain every single detail exactly, so God, so there!” crowd:

Do you know every last detail of how, precisely, God created the universe?  I mean, precisely how he spoke the whole thing into existence?  The complete and excruciating details of how, exactly, God did it, from the first photon to the last squidgy bit on Eve?

No?

Deary me.  Guess I’ll have to just stick with science, then.

So You Know Exactly How God Did It, Then?

Handy Reference Guide to Biblical Rape Laws

Dana Hunter1 Comment

For those who like to take their religion literally, here’s an easy-to-use reference guide:


Lessee… had we been following those guidelines, I do believe I would’ve been married.  Believe me when I say that given the choice between that and stoning, I would have been handing out rocks.

This is one of the reasons I despise fundamentalists.  They don’t think the world has changed since Bronze Age goatherders went on a killing spree.  Oh, some of them say Jesus came and gave us a new, kinder law – then try to tell us the Ten Commandments et al are still in force.  And they somehow conveniently forget the violent bits of the New Testament when telling us how wonderful and gentle Jesus was.  And they enjoy endorsing Paul’s misogynistic bullshit far too much.

Building a modern civilization on Biblical foundations makes about as much sense as licensing only psychopaths as child care providers.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to whoever posted this on Twitter.  Alas, I cannot remember who it was!)

Handy Reference Guide to Biblical Rape Laws

Why Talking to Idiots Gets You Nowhere

Dana Hunter

Finally finished this paper that’s been in my tabs for days: “Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of a Pseudoscience.”  Stumbled across it playing on The Panda’s Thumb, and while it took me forever to read because I’ve had the attention span of a spastic on caffeine pills lately, I got quite a lot out of it.  Namely: if one goes about disproving IDiotic blathering about how evolutionary theory can’t explain X, they’d better not be doing it in order to convert the cretins.  May as well spend your time trying to convince me that curling is an exciting and dramatic sport to watch – you’d have better luck making a conversion.  Mind you – I find nearly every sport in the universe dead boring.

No, the only time the IDiots become useful IDiots is when they inspire evolutionary biologists to figure things out and demolish IDiotic arguments from the foundations up – not because any amount of evidence will make these dumbshits realize they’re wrong (none will), but because of the ricochets.  Knocking down an IDiot’s argument is a fantastic way to teach ordinary folk like me about biology.  It makes it more interesting, what with the controversy and the smart people vs. the Dumbskis sorta thing.  It’s also a good idea to have a refutation ready so that innocent bystanders don’t get snookered. 

Besides, it’s fun.  Especially when the poor howling IDiots snivel and have to rush out to move their goalposts.

Anyway.  There’s my thoughts.  It’s an entertaining paper, too, so you lot may enjoy reading it yourselves.  Which you should go do now, because I’m off to watch another Harry Potter film.

Why Talking to Idiots Gets You Nowhere

What He Said and Other Political Nonsense

Dana Hunter5 Comments

Lately, our own George has been on a political roll.  It’s about enough to make me put on a cheerleading outfit and jump up and down, because I haven’t anything to add except “Yeah, baby!”

First, read a succinct and cutting history of modern American politics in “What You Can’t Say, political edition,” which should be required reading for students.  Then watch him deconstruct a scary Con flier in “Scared yet?”  I’m now wanting to send him every stupid conservative political flier I get just so I can watch him unleash his Smack-o-Matic upon it.

In other political nonsense, I want everyone to go read this Think Progress post: “While GOP Sought Exemption For Their Industry, PA Debt Collector Tricked Consumers With Phony Courtroom.”  Then give it to everyone you know who believes Cons are looking out for the little guy.  Remind them that this sort of corporate behavior is considered just business as usual to Cons.  That’s the free market, kiddies!

After that, if you need some entertainment at Cons’ expense, you can go read Steve Benen’s “Targeting Programs That Don’t Exist (But Should),” wherein we learn that the Cons’ Big Idea for cutting spending is to eliminate programs that no longer exist, while claiming they cost ten times more than they actually did. 

Great job, America.  You elected the most conspicuously unintelligent group of politicians to Congress in our country’s history.  It’s too bad we have to watch this country die from terminal stupidity whilst living in it.  Maybe it’s time for a move to a nice tropical island somewhere.  One with an army of cabana boys, bringing me drinks on an assembly-line scale, because I’ll need vats of the stuff while I watch the Cons in Congress proceed to destroy what little they left standing the last time.

What He Said and Other Political Nonsense

Is There No End to Inanity?

Dana Hunter

By now, the more perceptive of you may have realized I haven’t been writing about pollyticks lately.  That’s not because I’ve lost interest, it’s because I’ve been awash in a target-rich environment.  After so many hours of exposure to ever-increasing stupidity, day after day, my poor brain crawled out a convenient ear canal and ran away.  I’ve been luring it back by feeding it lots and lots of science, not to mention a heaping helping of Connie Willis.

We’ll have a nice roundup of political dumbfuckery later this week.  For now, suffice it to say that if a politician in this country has got an R after his/her name and is currently electable, he/she is probably batshit fucking insane, so deplorably stupid that no words have been coined which properly describe the horror, and the fact he/she has any chance at all of getting elected solves the mystery of why great civilizations fail.  Forget all those theories of environmental catastrophe, barbarian invasions and so forth: it was probably the because they let their politicians become as horrifically idiotic as ours.

You’d think this current election cycle would have sated my appetite for stupidity.  Alas, no.  It’s just caused me to crave a little variety.  IDiots are always good for a laugh, and watching ol’ Billy Dumbski nearly get expelled for not toeing the good Baptist line gave me the giggles.  Still, I wanted more.  So I went though PZ’s blogroll looking for new sources of entertainment, and came across a site called DC’s Improbable Science.

Parents: if you have ever thought of sending your kiddies to a Waldorf school, unthink that thought now.

In an article entitled “The true nature of Steiner (Waldorf) education. Mystical barmpottery at taxpayers’ expense. Part 1,” we learn that these schools are repositories of quackery of the first order.  We’re talking people who think the moon’s phase is important to crops, kiddies aren’t completely incarnated yet, and pigeonhole them based on “The Four Temperaments.”  Yes, just like the Four Humors, only in this case, even dumber.

Oh, and if you think your kiddies shall at least be taught to read, think again.  That, you see, would hinder their spiritual development.

As far as history class, well, you know, “‘The narrative thread for Ancient civilisations often begins with the fall of Atlantis’.”

You may remember the fear of being held back a grade because you were flunking reading, math, or science.  Well, kids in Waldorf schools have a whole other set of concerns:

To quote from The Age:

“One parent, who did not wish to be named, said she moved her son out of the school after a Steiner teacher recommended he repeat prep “because his soul had not been reincarnated yet”.

“I just don’t believe it is educationally sound,” she said.”

Ya think?

I marvel, my darlings, positively marvel, at the sheer volume of utter bullshit human beings seem capable of swallowing whole.  I guarantee you: down a cocktail of magic mushrooms and LSD, write down the insanity that ensues, blend it with the contents of the newage and religion sections of your local bookstore, pick bits of it at random, and serve it up after having translated it from English to Swahili to Japanese and back to English using Babelfish, and you’d still find people who would wholeheartedly believe every incomprehensible word of the resulting mess.

People are weird.

Is There No End to Inanity?

Faux News Megafail

Dana Hunter

Read.  Marvel.  Weep.

Just how desperate to find a story–and a controversy–do you have to be to believe this is real:

Anchors at the Fox News national morning news show “Fox and Friends” reported Tuesday that the city of Los Angeles had ordered 10,000 jetpacks for its police and fire departments. The price tag: a whopping $100,000 per unit.

Yes, jet packs. Thousands of them. Maybe that should have set off warning bells. Well, actually it did, but this being Fox News, well… (italics mine):

For those doing the math at home, the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles, which is regularly sending its police detectives home because it can’t pay all their overtime, allegedly shelled out a billion dollars on space-age transportation that it has never used in an emergency situation, much less tested.

“We certainly haven’t bought any jetpacks,” said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. “We haven’t bought [squad] cars for two years.”

As Gawker.com was the first to note, the “Fox and Friends” report appeared to contain material taken right out of a story from the Weekly World News tabloid, which bills itself as “The World’s Only Reliable New Source.”

Look.  I know the tabloids were right that one time when they broke the story of John Edwards’s love child.  But that was the Enquirer, which is attempting some respectability (perhaps trying to fill a sucking void of respectability left in journalism when Faux News started broadcasting), whereas the Weekly World News is the same as it ever was – a rag full of made-up shit that only complete fucking morons believe is true. Shit, I’ll bet you cash money you could present it to a classroom full of special needs kids and a good majority of ’em would know it’s complete bullshit. 

The problem is this: Faux News fucktards likely don’t watch Mythbusters because they believe it’s a librul conspiracy, and we know they think science is a bunch of left-wing hooey (except the science they agree with, of course), so they probably aren’t aware that we aren’t yet living la vida Jetsons.  They’re easy marks for anyone who wants to sell them a guvmint waste line.  And, apparently, any rag that claims Hillary Clinton’s adopted an alien baby rates high on their truthiness scale.

There’s something that the folks who do the ratings need to keep in mind, here: yes, Faux News has high ratings.  That’s because a handful of very insanely stupid viewers believe every word they say, and because a large number of people tune in because they can’t believe what the fucktards just said and keep watching to see what shit-for-brains dumbfuckery gets spouted next.

It’s really too bad Faux News is televised, not printed on pulp.  But I suppose it’s just a bit too stupid to be called tabloid journalism.  At least the tabloids understand they’re reporting made-up shit.  The same, alas, is not true for the gullible goobs at Faux.

Faux News Megafail

Commending These to Your Attention

Dana Hunter2 Comments

I have to go to bed early so that I’m nice and fresh for fending off used car salesmen in the morning.  I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to approach this situation.  I got my hand in by test-driving a car I’m lukewarm about, and managed to escape without being invited back to the office to discuss a deal.  But we’re in the big leagues, now, going to two different large dealerships and seeing two cars I adore already.  One is the snappiest Nissan Sentra I’ve ever seen in my life, complete with spoiler (and black!), the other a nearly-new Honda Civic that looks utterly delish.  Both are manual transmission.  Both are low mileage.  Both have clean Carfax reports.  And both seem like they would make me a happy woman indeed.  So I have two issues, here: 1) must talk salesman into lowering prices and 2) must choose between them.  What if the price is right for both?  What if I fall head-over-heels for both? 

Sean and I pondered this during the slow bits of work, and decided the only mechanism for choice would be to throw the used car salesmen in a mud wrestling pit.  Victor gets the sale.

(Gentlemen, if you’re reading this, I just want to assure you it very probably won’t come to that.  But you might want to have swim trunks to hand just in case.)

Anyway, whist I’m off on those adventures, here are a few links to keep you occupied.

Bing at Happy Jihad’s has treated an Answers In Genesis “research paper” with due respect, i.e., none.  I plucked two quotes from it, one because it’s beautiful, the other because I couldn’t resist going there.

Quote #1:

The overwhelming consensus of the astronomical community is that you are not a part of it, Jason. 

Brilliant.  Simply brilliant.

Quote #2:

The Bing Bang sits on your head and farts, feeb.

So, ah, I guess that would be Bing Bang Boom, then.  Ah ha ha.

Right. 

Our own John Pieret (may he get well soon!) points out that John Wilkins has an important project going.  Scientists!  Here’s your chance to shape a book explaining the basics of scientific method(s) to laypeople such as myself:

So scientists should follow the series and assist in formulating the manual and nonscientists can help in making it intelligible to people like them. Everyone can, I’m sure, learn something along the way and have fun in the effort.

Set to!

Finally, a pair o’ quotes and a post from Steve Benen.

Quote #1:

Republicans will keep asking, “Where are the jobs?” and no one seems inclined to answer, “Your party got rid of them.”

Quote #2:

And maybe it’s just me, but when I hear about a “Goldilocks” planet that appears capable of supporting life, I don’t think, “Cool, maybe there are aliens there.” I think “Cool, maybe we can move there after we’ve finished screwing up here.”

And the post:  “Lying About Lying is Never a Good Idea.”  Just remember, kiddos, the woman who lied and lied and lied and then lied about lying repeatedly is the same one who said that a person hiding Jews should always tell the truth when Nazis come looking for said Jews, because lying is never ever justified.

How’s that again, Christine?

Commending These to Your Attention

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield…

Dana Hunter

You can’t miss this.  Truly cannot.  Go. Read.  And marvel at the power of faith to make dangerous ridiculous fucking morons out of some people.  I’m going to inflict it on my Christian best friend, because I do so love hearing him howl at people who put the blind in blind faith.  Perhaps someday he’ll forgive me.

Actually a little appalled that sensible soldiers are risking their lives to protect this god-deluded fool.  Kudos to them for doing the job and doing it well!

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield…