The International House of Bacon

30 Rock: Ann & I began watching the first season this week. Early notes? We like it. We don’t love it, although it has some seriously great moments, but it sometimes feels a little too formulaic, and the more recent episodes (we’re about 8 episodes in) don’t seem to want to take the risks the early ones did, although the Toofer/Tracy argument episode we watched last night may signal something more, who knows. It’s good enough where we’ll try and catch up and keep up, but that’s where we’re at so far.

Battlestar Galactica: The first disappointing episode of the season was last week, but even then, this season has been really good so far. I fear the inevitable cliffhanger in June that will signal the 10 month layoff at this point…

Mad Men: A shake of the fist to AMC for showing the first two episodes in the series over again, and then stopping. Way to let us catch up if our DVR failed us, really. This, by the way, is an awesome show everyone should be watching.

An interesting question was posed late last week, and it’s one I’ve encountered a few times:

Atheist readers, what if you were to suddenly find out tomorrow that the God of the Christian Evangelicals was real?

…

I’m not asking HOW it would happen (see Frank’s earlier blog on this) but IF it happened, how would you react?

I don’t know if the “what if” question for atheists is a universal one, or simply goes with the stereotypical Catholic guilt that makes me still shudder at the thought of hell, not enjoy pleasurable experiences as much, etc etc. However, it at least seems to be somewhat different where I don’t come to it from a place of anger (i.e., prayer failed me, something bad happened, etc).

At least for me, my positioning comes from a place of needing more evidence. Thus, if this evidence comes forth that I’m dead wrong about this, do I have any other choice? I wonder how many atheists would say “yes, I still have a choice here.” Not saying that there’s no extra choice to “follow” or whatever, but just on the existence angle.

The more interesting concept for me, actually, involves more of the free will aspect of the discussion - if the God in the discussion is real as we’ve been told to believe, we’ve also got the free will argument to run with, and a broader discussion about the ideologies and the way we got to that point and whatever else is created as well. While advancing the debate significantly, it also brings up a lot of other odd questions.

So yeah. It’s an interesting concept, and one that probably would require more thought if it were something that could realistically occur.

* So, we all know the story from last night, with Obama showing some surprising resiliency and Clinton hitting a pretty rough patch. Looks like she’s still going, though, which isn’t surprising at all.

* Interesting exit poll out of Indiana: half of voters were influenced by Wright, and 75% of those voters broke for Clinton.

* John Edwards on Barack Obama: “Sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.” Because if anyone could recognize a complete lack of substance, it’s John Edwards. I love it.

* An interesting piece on libertarian paternalism. I don’t like it for a lot of the same reasons the folks at Reason don’t, but it’s still more enticing than the alternatives that get thrown out there.

* The continued annoyance of the McCain candidacy: on one hand, he again vows to push for Alito/Roberts-style judges, a very good thing. On the other, he praises the Gang of 14 as allowing for the existence of them. Uh, wha? I wonder if he simply knows that the vast majority of conservatives will have to hold their nose, so he’s just sticking to the same old script. The only bright side is Obama’s response, which continues to sound completely tone deaf on what is one of the more important issues of the campaign.

* An interesting timeline of Obama’s electoral history. This is likely to be his first race contested to the finish, and those are some pretty neat tricks he pulled in some cases to cruise into office.

* Substitute teacher does a magic trick, and was accused of wizardry.

‘Tis all for now.