Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists

I hope that everyone is as excited as I am about seeing that new movie that will finally blow all of those godless heathens out of the water! That is, at least if you were sad enough to actually pay money to watch Uwe Boll’s In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale like I was (for the lulz?) in theaters.

To sum up “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” semi-famous game show host and star of the Clear Eyes commercials, Ben Stein, attempts to convince us that so-called “intelligent design” - an oxymoron unto itself - is some sort of alternative theory to that of evolution through straw-men such as “I can’t believe we came out of lightning striking a mud puddle!” and “My head hurts. Therefore, God!”. There are strong indications from the pre-screenings that Stein will take that extra step and attribute Darwinism to Nazism and possibly Communism as well.

Hopefully there will be a legitimate torrent up soon (this one is a fraud, just the mega-trailer running over and over again in a 90-minute loop) because I’d imagine that we’d at least a little reluctant to be funneling money to the Discovery Institute. But if anyone is feeling very masochistic, feel free to head down to Mann Beverly Center 13 (right next to Cedar Sinai Hospital). Yes, someone managing that theater just pissed away a lot of money in the name of Christian fundamentalism (this country is not THAT stupid to make the movie a monetary success… I hope.)

In any case, E:NIA might make for a great drinking game or miscellaneous competition. We could, for example, split up into the following teams and see who wins out in the end:

Team Hitler

Scores When: Godwin’s Law is invoked
Super Powers: Panzer V “Panther” Tanks, with a maximum of 120mm of armor and a 75mm KwK L/70 high-velocity gun

Achilles’ Heel: A delusional madmen who pretended to be an expert strategist and tactician but in reality don’t know shit about modern warfare.

Team Lightning-Hitting-A-Pond

Scores When: Ben Stein or someone else in the film comes up with evolution straw men like “lightning hitting a pond”, bananas, or mousetraps assembling by themselves

Super Powers: Wholesale ignorance over how the theory of evolution works, a long and tiresome name

Achilles’ Heel: See “Super Powers.”

Team “Academic Freedom”

Scores When: Creationist(s) claim being “oppressed” and marginalized by the scientific community when attempting to peddle their propaganda as actual research

Super Powers: Framing the debate as a “human rights” issue, the support of Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback

Achilles’ Heel: “Big Science”, which is part of a cabal/triumvirate of evil including secular progressives and George Soros, who plot the demise of this country’s Judeo-Christian roots, just like in this novel

Team Liberal-Progressive/Communist Conspiracy

Scores When: Evolution is linked with liberals, liberal-leaning interest groups, socialism, and/or communism

Super Powers: Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe, Howard Dean’s scream, and George Soro’s evil conspiracy to take over America (TM)

Achilles’ Heel: Communism being a pipe dream, the fall of the Soviet Union, the unfortunate marginalization of liberalism in modern American politics

Random Things of the Day (Hopefully this will be a staple for slow news days):

• The Jesus General - A blog that mails right-wingers and religious fundamentalists, praising them for making America that much more stupid

• Stephen Baldwin’s Skate Ministry Theme Song - It’s gosh-darn hardcore!

• Some classic “atheist-seeing-the-light” short with terrible scar effects.

-Robin Zhang