Wednesday Exposition

Apocalypse still imminent: Rapture now coming in October – Guardian. I'm starting to think the whole Rapture announcement was part of a giant scientific experiment to see just how much bullshit the human mind can tolerate.

American Scripture: How David Barton Won the Christian Right – Atlantic. This article has a clue about why the experiment above is going so well. David Barton has made a career out of convincing the Christian Right in America that the country was founded as an explicitly Christain nation using selective quotation and dubious scholarship. Applebaum zeroes in on why he is so popular:

And, perhaps most crucially, he insists that the meanings of these texts should require no additional context; that they are readily evident to all who have eyes to see, and a mind to understand and discern. He proclaims a professoriate of all believers.

I think this is why pseudoscience is so popular. The charlatans frame it as an appeal to individuality and self-regard, as in: 'who's smarter, you or this pointy-head scientist?' As if truth was a matter of ego.

Denmark bans Marmite under food safety regulations – BBC

The last action heroine: Why tough actions don't always equal strong women – Alison Willmore, Onion AV Club

How did this get made? Expanding the menu of links, this is a podcast where funny people ask why/how crap films get made.

And no discussion of bad films is complete without Manos (and Torgo):