Kevin Swanson is a spacist!

So how did I miss this? It's Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson condemning Captain Kirk for having a three-way with two aliens in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Not pictured: The other one. She's in there somewhere.

"What is this thing you
Earthmen call...crabs?"

The source of Swanson's theological icky seems to be that Kirk is getting it on with aliens in the new movie, but has this guy ever even seen Star Trek before? Ask even the most casual fan to tell you what they know about Captain Kirk and I guarantee you that 'has sex with alien chicks' is going to come up right after 'space captain' and 'Shatner.' The man is a veritable grab bag of interstellar STD's. As much as I think that J. J. Abrams doesn't understand Star Trek at all, he at least gets that Kirk + alien woman = snu-snu.

Yes, even the Horta.

Look, there are plenty of reasons not to like Into Darkness: the illogical plot, the mindless action, that bullshit about Khan being a white English guy, but bestiality? That's just, uh, space racist? Spacist? I don't know, the point is aliens are people too, that's like what Star Trek is all about...that and exploring space in unitards. Different species on Star Trek have been boning for decades and as preposterous as it seems from a scientific perspective, such boning has even resulted in half-human half-alien characters like Mr. Spock.

Yeah, I did say preposterous. Look, while I'm no sciencetician, I do know how to look things up on wikipedia and one of the things that defines a species is an ability to interbreed. Alien/human hybrids are up there with unicorns on the plausibility scale, but this is Star Trek and little technobabble goes a long way.

"Congratulations! It's a scientific implausibility!" 

Anyway, Kevin Swanson is not only a theological expert but also a scientific genius so it should come as no surprise that he manages to shoe-horn the evils of evolution into his rant about Captain Kirk's penchant for xenosexuality:

Kevin's a rare exception to the
'glasses make you look smart' rule.

"...within an evolutionary construct there is no real problem with speciation and cross-species mating, there's no problem with that at all, in fact that's how you evolve, that's how you get evolution. And so the end result of course, is that evolution has no basic problem with bestiality or cross species mating. Okay?"

-Kevin Swanson, putting words together

Holy shit, let's breed centaurs!

Um...no, it's not okay. In fact, we're all stupider for having heard him say that. While many of the sounds he made are big, sciencey words, nothing he said is really a thing. You don't, and again this is my wikipedia-based research talking here, create a new species through the cross-breeding of two other species. Beavers and ducks didn't mate and come up with the platypus. I know people tune in to conservative radio shows to have their worldview reaffirmed and not to like, learn things, but holy shit, there should be a law against saying things are science when they're not. Oh and because this is a conservative radio show, listeners expect a certain number of gay jokes with their crap science so Swanson's co-host crammed this funny, funny line into their condemnation of fictional sex with fictional alien cat-women:

"Well, you know I could understand if Christians would get upset if it was a male of a different species. No actually, I'm not sure that the bestiality and the homosexuality are really all that different." 

-Dave Beuhner, confused about the homosexuality

and about the proper use of the definite article

"That's the gays for you, always having the sex with the animals..."

How 'bout that? They actually did a good job with Pacific Rim.*

*tee hee.

"Um...thanks I think...also, I put
Ron Perlman in it, so you're welcome."

Alright, look, I'm not saying that Pacific Rim is like the greatest movie ever or even that it's in the top fifty, but when a sci-fi action movie presents itself as two hours of giant robots punching giant monsters and then delivers exactly that in a summer with no other options except a Wrath of Khan knock-off and two movies about Scientologists tootling around the apocalypse, Guillermo del Toro's (Spanish for William of the bull!) robo-punch-a-thon looks pretty damn good.

Above: Ishiro Honda directing the shit out of
Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich,
and he'd never even heard of CGI.

The premise is just that simple: in the not-too-distant future alien monsters from another dimension pop up through a wormhole in the Pacific ocean and start Ishiro Honda-ing coastal cities. How? Who cares? Obviously, the only way to combat such an invaders is to build equally giant robots (ok, mecha, really) to engage them in hand-to-appendage combat. Of course the mecha are also equipped with plasma cannons and swords but the pilots never use them until after they've leveled a few city blocks with their wrestling moves first. Again, why? Because it looks more awesomer.

It's exactly the same logic that left us to wonder why Voltron pilots ever bothered with lion mode, or why the Power Rangers didn't immediately go for the Megazords and just step on the monster of the week.

"Gentlemen, I don't see any way around it,
the only way we're ever going to win this
fight is punching, lots of punching."

Does monster-punching make more sense in context? No, absolutely not. Do you care while you're watching it? Ditto. Sure, the humans could just have easily constructed giant tanks armed with plasma cannons and bombarded the creatures from a safe distance. It probably would have been cheaper, resulted in less collateral damage and would have avoided the dangerous neuro-drift technology (syence!) that most of the film's story revolves around. On the other hand, when a six-hundred foot humanoid punch machine is on the table, you don't opt for practicality...

Oh yeah, the neuro-drift thing. Apparently the only way to pilot your giant mecha is by having two pilots link their brains in order to avoid neuro-overload. If it sounds like bullshit, it's because it is, but it sets up the interpersonal drama we watch unfold between punching.

To be clear, controlling the mecha requires that two pilots cosplay as Master Chief, connect their brains to each other and then play Dance Dance Revolution while nestled in the robot's extremely vulnerable head. Why don't they simply operate them remotely from the safety of a bunker? Because shut up, that's why.

If Yancy's name wasn't a Futurama
reference, I want my $11 back.

By interpersonal drama, I mean the squishy human emotions the actors are simulating. Our hero, who I'm sure had a name...hang on, I'll look it up...ok, it's Raleigh Becket-of course it is. Anyway, he was a robot pilot along with his brother Yancy. Yancy is killed in a fight while linked to Raleigh and now Raleigh is reluctant to pilot a robot when the mustached military father figure shows up and asks him to save the world. It's just...too painful...<sniff>. Until of course he meets Mako, the hot shot rookie with a tragic past and with whom he'd totally like to make out.

Whatever. It's not like we go to these kinds of movies for plot and character development. And we're certainly not there for the acting. If you are, you should probably skip this one, although the presence of Ron Perlman helps.

Do what I did and just pretend the actors are themselves
robots piloted by even tinier, better actors. It helps.

Also, and this is key, it didn't end
with Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox
 screwing on Bumblebee's hood.
Advantage: Del Toro

So who cares if the acting's not the best, or the story's not the most original? I was just happy it wasn't another reboot or comic book movie. I mean, I usually like that sort of thing, but it's nice to walk out of a movie and not have to complain about how it didn't live up to the source material. Sure, the line between homage and blatant clone is a thin one, and Pacific Rim does borrow pretty heavily from Godzilla movies and animé like Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it was original-ish, or if it wasn't, it was entertaining enough that you won't care.

Let's Boycott Ender's Game!

So here's a sticky wicket: do I go see Ender's Game or not? Huh? What's Ender's Game? Oh sweet mother of Lloth, what kind of nerd are you? Fine, here, Ender's Game is a 1985 novel set in the future in which the military trains child prodigies to be leaders in the upcoming war against an alien race hilariously named 'the Buggers.'

"Wait a sec, 'Bugger' means what in your language?"

This book is to Ender's game
what season 9 was to Stargate.

The book has been made into a movie and I was all about going to see it until I was reminded of an uncomfortable fact about the novel's author, Orson Scott Card...I mean other than the fact that he cranked out like fifteen unnecessary sequels to Ender. Ok, fine, Ender's Shadow was good, I'll give you that one. And I kind of enjoyed Speaker for the Dead, even though most people didn't like it. But by the time he got to Shadow of the Hegemon you could tell he was just milking it and...ok, I'm getting off track. What I'm talking about is the fact that Orson's kind of an icky person. He belongs to the National Organization for Marriage (remember these guys?) and is a vocal opponent of gay marriage. And I don't mean in a 'I have my beliefs, and you have yours' kind of way but in a 'gay people will destroy 'merica kind of way.'

Here's a link to an essay he wrote in which he insists that gay people serve no function in society and if two dudes are allowed to get married, then an army of righteous straight people should bring down the government by any means necessary. I think 'holy shit' is the phrase you're searching for.

And here's a link to a blog post I wrote explaining that gay people
exist because of saber tooth cats. Ball's in your court, Orson. 

"Hey gaymos, you can get married
in California now, so go see my movie." 

-Orson Scott Card, 

extending the olive branch

In an effort to see that Card, and by extension, groups like NOM don't get any more money with which to fund their bullshit efforts to fight against marriage equality, a geeky LGBT group called Geeks OUT is organizing a boycott of the movie. In response, Card issued a statement which I think was an attempt at reconciliation, but comes off as him being a passive aggressive dick:

"It will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance towards those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute."

Oy. Where to begin? Ok, first of all it's always kind of hilarious when intolerant people call for tolerance of their intolerant attitude. As though the issue of civil rights was just a friendly debate over tea between two equally valid, yet opposing view points and not say, a struggle by a disenfranchised minority to be recognized as equal citizens under the law. 

"I believe I should be allowed to marry the person I love."
"And I say you're a godless, hellbound abomination whose very existence imperils our society."
"Very well, then let us agree to disagree. Excellent tea by the way."
"Thanks, I thought I'd try a new blend."

Hurray for partial recognition
of marriage equality! 

And what does he mean 'when the issue was still in dispute?' Same-sex marriage is still illegal in 37 states and opponents of marriage equality, like the NOM (to which Card belongs) are at this very moment engaged in a vicious legal battle to make sure that their bullshit pseudo-religious objections to hot Takei sex are forever enshrined in our laws. Sure there have been some important pro-equality victories in the last few months, but in what way is this issue not still in dispute? 

But does any of this mean I can't go see Ender's Game? Is it right to treat the film (or the book for that matter) as tainted simply because the author espouses a bigoted viewpoint? I mean, the book itself wasn't anti-gay, just Card. And the movie has Harrison Ford and Ben Kinglsy in it and the special effects look great and...

uhhg...but the trailer makes it look pretty cool and it has been a pretty disappointing summer for sci-fi movies, and do I really want to miss this one just because...

...I mean there's a chance it could be pretty decent and what's $11.50? It's not like the money goes directly to NOM, and what about all other people who helped make the movie? Also, going to see it would actually be really good, uh, for the economy and..and...uh...

"Yeah, not bloody likely."

...sigh. So much for that. I guess it really does mean I can't go see it, at least not without feeling like a terrible person. Yeah, I know that me not going probably won't affect the box office in any serious way, I mean there plenty of other people who either don't know about the author's politics or don't care about them and that's fine. But maybe if enough people skip it and let everyone know why they're skipping it, it could send a message that Card's name and his attitudes are a liability to any movies based on his work and maybe they'll think twice about giving him any more money (and therefore the groups he belongs to). At least until he makes an apology, stops supporting anti-gay organizations, completely reevaluates his worldview and...goddamnit, I'm never going to be able to see this movie am I, Orson?

Paging Doctor HobbLobb...

So it looks like lawyers for Hobby Lobby just convinced 10th Circuit Judge Joe Heaton that the new Affordable Care Act probably wouldn't apply to their company and that the fines for not complying with it are lame and that they shouldn't have to pay them if they don't feel like it. It's a decision that I kind think of violates the spirit of what a fine is supposed to be, but hey, what do I know?

Well, I'll be damned.

Just so you know, your friends lied
to you. Nobody likes homemade gifts.

Hobby Lobby, if you've never heard of it, is a craft and hobby store that sells things like felt, popsicle sticks and glitter to the kind of people who spend far too much time on Pinterest* and give out homemade Christmas presents. They made the news earlier this year for announcing that they plan to defy the new health care law because it covers emergency contraception. I complained about this back in January, but if you want me to sum up, Hobby Lobby is owned by evangelical Christians who feel they shouldn't have to cover the morning after pill under the ACA.

The Bible was written during the Bronze Age when no one had ever even heard of Plan-B, so what's the problem? Well, emergency contraceptives are taken after intercourse to disrupt conception which some Christians see as a form of abortion. So their argument-that they're being asked to violate their conscience-is not completely unreasonable.

"So the morning after pill, gay people, shellfish, clothes made of two different materials,
and music that doesn't suck...man, is there anything that isn't an abomination with you?"

-Steve, one of the guys that wrote the Bible

(oh, like you know who wrote the Bible)

Above: David Green, founder of 

Hobby Lobby and CFO of your vagina.

Note, I said not completely. The comparison offered up by the 10th Circuit is that a kosher butcher wouldn't be asked to put ham in a sandwich so why should Hobby Lobby be required to comply with the law? If that sounds like a tremendous load of horseshit to you, that's because it is. First of all, kosher butchers aren't trying to weasel out of Obamacare. Secondly, while Hobby Lobby's owners may have an objection to emergency contraceptive, that doesn't mean the people that work for them do. I mean, why should employee health care options be limited by David Green's beliefs?

You know, not to get all slippery slope on you here, but if companies can claim religious exemptions from having to provide health care, isn't the ACA suddenly screwed? Every corporation in America is going to suddenly find Jesus if it means bigger profits. 

"Tim, I'd like you to meet Jesus Christ, he's going to be helping us out around here,
cutting costs, meeting our Q3 goals, oh, and he's a fucking lunatic on the racquetball court."

"Quick, look busy, Jesus is coming!"

Look, no one wants David Green's religious liberty to get trampled on and you can totally see where he and his supporters are coming from when they say that the law is unfair to religious companies. But if the Court decides in Hobby Lobby's favor, wouldn't they be putting one guy's beliefs ahead of his employees' rights? I mean, David Green's boss might be Jesus, but Hobby Lobby's employees work for a for-profit company and are entitled to fair and equal treatment under the law.

I feel for Green and his supporters, I do, but health care should be between a person and their doctor, not a person, the giant for-profit corporation they work for, said corporation's religious beliefs and then the doctor. That's just unfair and more than a little icky...

"Hey Allan, good news, I just talked to your shift supervisor and she says her pastor
thinks it would be ok for me to remove your anal cyst. So, how does Thursday sound?"

*Yup, picking on Pinterest is a thing I do now.

Near-miss!

Hey, you know what's not really news? Not being in a plane crash. Yet check out MSNBC.com's homepage after the terrible and fatal accident that happened earlier today:

...but wasn't. So why are we talking about her?

Pictured: Just some of the planet's
7 billion nobodies who weren't on the plane.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but why did they even bring up Facebook Executive Sheryl Sandberg when a plane carrying 300 people crash-landed in San Francisco? Well, she was going to be on that flight but switched in order to use her frequent flyer miles. Ok...Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely thrilled that Sandberg is safe and I don't for a moment believe that she asked for all this attention, but it's a little troubling that a plane crashed and half the coverage is devoted to someone who wasn't even on the damn thing. I mean, lots of people weren't on that plane.

It's like the news was looking for some way to make a terrifying and violent crash-landing into a major U.S. City interesting and the only way they felt they could do it was by making a vague connection to a notable person. It just seems a little, you know...

This just in: It's been confirmed that cast members of HBO's Game of Thrones,
who have also ridden on airplanes, are safe having been nowhere near
San Francisco International when the accident occurred.

Let's hear it for 'merica!

Hey everyone, it's time once again to celebrate America's victory over King George III and his army of not so well-camouflaged Redcoats! How can you mark the occasion? Explosives. Of course some of us live in counties, towns, hamlets etc. where fireworks are illegal, so what the hell are we supposed to do? Here are some alternatives:

Pictured: George III and Lord Charles Cornwallis
inspect the elite British Warriors. Source: History. 

As long as were appropriating Chinese
cultural elements, let's get some of those
Dragon things too. Those are awesome.

Blow shit up anyway! You could drive across state lines and buy some fireworks illegally. After all, how dare your town stand between you and your god-given right to play with potentially deadly explosives? Sure, there's every chance that you don't know what you're doing, but that shouldn't stop you from waving a middle finger (or whichever one you have left) at authority. It's Independence Day, and there's nothing more American than flouting authority, endangering yourself and others and watching as one of the most famous Chinese inventions light up the sky.

Yeah, it's from Jurassic Park, but
tell me this isn't the image that comes
to mind when I say Jeff Goldblum.

Speaking of Independence Day, you could always watch that movie, Independence Day. It's not one of my favorites, but I suppose that the only thing more American than going outside and setting off fireworks is not going outside and sitting in front of the TV instead. It has everything we apparently want from a movie: explosions, non-sensicle plot, explosions, scientific inaccuracy, explosions, Jeff Goldblum. Sure it's crap, but it is a sci-fi/action movie that was made before they all had that Inception bwwwooooww-noise we're all so sick of. Besides, you could do a lot worse.

It was also about casting off the food.
Blood sausage? Holy shit British people...

Speaking of doing a lot worse, when you get down to it, the Revolutionary War was about casting off the oppressive, powdered-wig rule of the porphyria-addled English King, so I suppose you could celebrate by shaking your fist in the general direction of the U.K.'s current tyrant, Elizabeth II. She's, uh, east-ish I guess. Anyway, fist-shaking is low budget, doesn't require sitting though Bill Pullman's speech and it won't result in a trip to the emergency room. Go on, try it, I'll wait...feels good doesn't it? Take that, Queen!

Above: Elizabeth II Funbucks,
look at all the crazy colors!

Sure, the Royal Family is but a shadow of its former head-choppy, tax-happy self, but it's still important to remind Liz that we don't need her multi-party parliamentary system, universal healthcare, or the billions of pounds the monarchy generates for the British economy every year. Pounds of what? Oh, that's just their crazy British money. Instead of going by the numbers printed on them, people just weigh the bills. It's not very efficient, but it is more traditional. Sort of like how they put a 'u' in words like 'color' and 'favorite.' (citation needed)

But hey, it's a good time to celebrate being an American. DOMA was struck down, racism is apparently over and according to Back to the Future II, we're only like two years away from hoverboards. So, happy Fourth of July everyone!

Right? Racism is over? I mean, that's why you thought it
would be ok to gut the Voting Rights Act, right? Guys...?

Schadenfreude!

It looked something like this.

Hey, remember the other day when I was all 'pfft, stupid 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is gonna make everyone wait 25 days to get gay married...jerks.' You don't? Really? Because it was like Wednesday. Anyway, I did say something like that and do you know what I'm eating now? That's right, my words. California Governor Jerry Brown asked the court to go ahead and lift the stay placed on same sex-marriage licenses and they did.

I can't believe Delaware beat
us on this one. Delaware.

Yup, 4 years after a coalition of hate groups and inexplicably still tax-exempt churches persuaded a narrow majority of voters that voting 'yes' on Prop 8 was the only way to stop baby Jesus from crying, gay people in California can finally get married again. The Supreme Court has already rejected a petition from Prop 8 supporters asking them to hold off. No more waiting for sore losers to mount another appeal, no more legal roadblocks, as of Friday the State of California is as progressive as Delaware.

Above: Straight marriage is basically
 ruined forever. Way to go gay people.

While Wednesday's ruling certainly struck a blow for equality, I think we should take a moment to consider how same-sex marriage will affect people who hate joy. Sure, gay couples in California now enjoy the right to marry the person they love, but Prop 8 supporters have lost the right to treat them like shit. While celebrating this victory, I think it's important to keep in mind that there are people who are suffering because gays and lesbians have rights, people who can no longer enjoy their marriages knowing that gay-married couples are out there having hot Takei sex with all the same legal standing.

So I hope you'll join me in remembering the struggles of this loud and irrational group of busybodies whose vaguely religious yet vitriol packed anti-gay tantrum resulted in four years of legal bullshit for gay people to slog through. Thanks Prop 8 supporters, you guys can, uh, go away now.

This was the scene back in 2008 when Prop 8 was passed. Look at them,
so happy, so full of hope for a future where their baseless hatred carried the
full force of law...man, they can really go fuck themselves. Like for real.