Jimmy Akin doesn’t think BSG will hold up well:

I don’t think BSG will hold up that well: In the effort to make the characters realistic and flawed, it’s gone too far.

I think in future viewings, a couple of years from now when the immediacy of the first run has worn off, the characters will too often come across as cartoons of the gritty, profoundly flawed hero type (like Wolverine became in the comics). It won’t be possible to take them seriously because they are so over-the-top flawed and are constantly being put in situations designed to milk the maximum amount of emotion out of a situation, no matter how implausible the results.

I’m just trying to get a rise out of you–Akin’s post is typically thoughtful and well-considered. For my part, I have no idea how Battlestar Galactica will hold up, but for a different reason: The series is so tied to 9/11 and the West’s conflict with (radical) Islam that it’s not clear to me how this period will be remembered/regarded in the future and without knowing that, no way to know what lens BSG will be viewed through.

(Important note: I don’t think that this is a shortcoming of the series by any means. It’s clearly an attempt to seriously grapple with the issues of the day in a serious manner. If that limits its long-term playability, so be it. I’m not complaining.)

You should read Akin’s post, though. Very smart, very interesting writerly stuff.

The Fetish Final Four, that is.

I’ve got Facials, Tentacle Rape, Robot Sex, and Barely Legal, with Tentacles over Barely in the finals.

Obviously.

(Why Robot? Because it’s a 12 seed!)

This is sheer genius. Everything about it. I can’t even imagine the man-hours it took.

Do yourself a favor: If you only waste five minutes of your time today, waste it on this.

One of the potential holes in Ron Moore’s Cylon back-story is his explanation for Cylon resurrection technology, which, unless I’m mistaken, goes something like this:

For a very long time, Cylons could not achieve sexual reproduction, so they “reproduced” via download, or “resurrection.” Then something happened and Cylons could reproduce sexual reproduction, so they abandoned resurrection in favor of it. They turned their backs on resurrection technology for so long, in fact, that when they needed it again, nobody could quite figure out how to make it work any more. Or rather, it took a group of very smart Cylons working together for a very long time to reverse-engineer the tech.

The obvious problem being, how does an advanced civilization “lose” the ability to create an old technology. It sounds a little contrived; but maybe not.

Today’s Post carries an op-ed about credit default swaps by David Smick, which essentially makes the point that we have this giant financial system and nobody actually knows how it works:

I suspect Obama’s advisers would like nothing more than to dismantle an irresponsible firm such as Citigroup. They are afraid to do so, for one reason: All the big banks are connected to a potentially lethal web of paper insurance instruments called credit default swaps. These paper derivatives have become our financial system’s new master.

The theory holds that dismantling a big bank could unravel this paper market, with catastrophic global financial consequences. Or not. Nobody knows . . .

In addition, Geithner worries that because the troubled insurance giant American International Group (AIG) is a conduit for the banks’ use of credit default swaps, a collapse of AIG (as an unintended consequence of dismantling the big banks) could be catastrophic. AIG’s more than 300 million terrified holders of insurance-related investments and pension funds, who have investments totaling $20 trillion (U.S. GDP is $14 trillion), could suddenly rush for redemptions — the equivalent of a run on a bank. Geithner would face a worldwide insurance collapse to accompany his global banking collapse.

Or again, maybe not. Nobody knows.

Maybe resurrection technology looked just as opaque to the Cylons.

Adding to what my colleague Mr. Last said back in January in the Wall Street Journal, Ben Casselman keeps the ball rolling in his recent Journal entry, “Luxury Strikes Out”. Just one tidbit:

Top-level ticket holders can actually park inside the [Dallas Cowboys] stadium building, then relax in the more than 200,000 square feet of clubs and lounges. The priciest boxes are at field level, with patios just feet from the Cowboys bench. Players will pass through the attached club on their way to the field.

“It just seemed crazy, especially for true fans. It’s different if we were a corporation,” she says. Ms. Taylor and her family ended up paying license fees of $16,000 per seat for seats that aren’t as good as their old ones.

I mean, really? (Needless to say, both Casselman and Last are must-reads.)

Galley Reader D.H. sends along this suggestion as to how Zack Snyder might have improved Watchmen. If he had been willing to depart from the source material to replace Dr. Manhattan:

With Dr. Fünke:

The dramatic possibilities stagger the mind. For instance, imagine the internal tensions in a god-like figure who nonetheless is compelled to wear cut-offs.

All of that said, I have some thoughts on Watchmen which I’ll share at a later date, for reasons that a couple readers already understand.

Thanks to Galley friend A.F., aka The Walrus, I just listened to what is purported to be a recently unearthed Beatles song. Or at least a take of one. Over at Never Get Out of the Boat!, you will find a recording of “Revolution 1 (Take 20)” that runs all of 10 minutes and 46 seconds. The first 4 minutes are rather conventional and are pretty much what ended up on the White Album. Acoustically inclined with a few electrical zips here and there plus the subtle doo-wop (“shoobie-doowop-bop”), “Take 20” then descends into the anarchy and cacophony we saw bits of at the end of “I am the Walrus” and “All You Need is Love” and which ultimately climaxed with “Revolution 9.” Yes, I’m just making this up as I go along. In any event, it ends with Yoko Ono saying something to the effect of “you become naked.” (Not that any of us should ever picture her naked.)

UPDATE: After telling The Walrus that, not knowing it was Yoko’s voice, it kind of sounded hot, he told me to go to YouTube and type in “Lennon” and “hound dog” (the actual link was broken) and ask myself again if I thought so. I am so sorry I ever held that notion. Warning: This link is not for the faint of heart.

The Pig has some great images from an issue of Fortune from November 1936, hard by the Depression.