Mario Babies

I still don't have a Wii. I know, I'm behind the times. But even if I could swing the cost, bethje is currently studying for her CPA exam, and we all know that she'd be doing most of the actual playing anyway (since, y'know, I suck at pretty much every non-RPG). I like to keep an eye on the cast lists of new Mario games, though, and I have to say that I'm not so keen on the new additions to Mario Kart Wii. I guess Funky Kong is pretty cool, and while I haven't played or watched Super Mario Galaxy (see the beginning of the post for details), adding a new female character (Rosalina) isn't a bad idea. Remember back when I talked about the characters in Double Dash, though, and I complained about the fact that Mario and Luigi as babies were separate drivers? (Okay, you probably don't, since I only had about five people on my friends list back then, but still.) Well, MKW not only has them, but also Baby Peach and Baby Daisy. Peach has been in a few other games as a baby, but the infant Daisy is making her debut. I don't like the baby characters anyway, but I think what bothers me more than anything else is that they keep putting in these alternate versions of the same characters when there are so many others they could be using. I know they were originally going to use a Magikoopa (possibly Kamek) in one of the older MK games, but they ended up not doing so. Why not put him in one of the more recent games? Or what about Mouser, or Wart, or Professor E. Gadd? It's not like there's any shortage of characters in the Mario universe, so why bother with the babies?

Speaking of Mario, here are some more reviews of Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoons. You know, nostalgia really is an amazing power. Beth caught a little bit of one of the episodes, and said something along the lines of, "You know this is crap, right?" The thing is, I can't deny that, yet I enjoy it anyway. And it can't be that it reminds me of happier times, as the show first aired when I was in junior high, which isn't happy for anybody. Anyway, on with the reviews.

( Mind Your Mummy Mommy, Mario )

( The Beauty of Kootie )

( A Toadally Magical Adventure )

( Misadventures in Babysitting )

Another Bad Creator

I'd almost forgotten about Conservapedia, but colbyucb recently linked to this article on evolution. Notice the picture right at the top? Apparently, if Hitler and Stalin were influenced by Darwin, and a majority of Americans don't accept evolution (I have no idea whether that's true, but I sometimes have a tendency to underestimate human stupidity), that means it's not scientifically valid. So if some psychopath goes on a shooting rampage, does that mean the science of ballistics is invalid? The truth doesn't necessarily have to be nice, after all. But if they really want to play that game, I'd say throwing people out of a garden for eating fruit, and later drowning everyone on Earth except for five people, is pretty mean.

That reminds me of how some apologists will respond to any mention of divine cruelty in the Bible with, "Hey, the Creator can do anything he wants with his creations!" Really? Does that mean that, if I wrote a book and then suddenly decided I didn't like it, it would be all right for me to take other people's copies and burn them? And what about the abortion issue? By this logic, wouldn't they pretty much have to be pro-choice, which I would imagine most of them aren't? I guess their excuse would be that the baby is also God's creation, though. Still, I don't get how people can say that God is the Absolute Arbiter of Morality, yet He doesn't play by His own rules.

Incidentally, bethje saw Focus on the Family on a list of charities today. Since when does a hate group count as a charity? And does it bother anyone else that the Religious Right has usurped the word "family"? What should the rest of us use to refer to a group of related people?