Archive for October 14, 2008

The Republican Base Continues to Disgrace American Democracy (UPDATED)

As of this writing, the comments to a post by Greta Van Susteren, of Fox News, entitled “If You Could Ask Senator Obama One Question…” numbered in the thousands. The plurality of the posts make the Fox News demographic sound like a Palin rally. One winner: “It was Muslims who killed over 3000 of our people and yet a man that admits was muslin at one time, a man who hates Israel and a man who hates white americans is running for President of our country . He can’t even produce a birth certificated to prove he is a citzen.” Owwww. My head.  Update: this is terrifying.

Did I Miss Something?

Has anyone else noticed this Google ad (right)? I can hardly imagine an image better calcuated to induce nausea than Ben Stein’s smug, sneering face trumpeting a creationist success.

But wait — what success? “Expelled” was no success. It was roundly reviled by the responsible press, rated as one of the worst movies in RottenTomatoes history, made barely $7m, and quickly fizzled out. And if the claim is that it’s the “#1 documentary of 2008,” in a fair comparison, Bill Maher’s hit job “Religulous” blew “Expelled” way. Morally, it was a lie built on an insulting trivialization of genocide. By what fair rubric is this trash pile the #1 of anything positive?

As a side note, “Expelled” is still a legal catastrophe. Ben Stein’s only major “legacy” may be getting intelligent design films listed as “creation science evangelism” resources on the website of that prominent creationist loon cum felon, “Dr. Dino.” Epic Lemon v. Kurtzman fail: Stein’s still destroying creationism’s legal chances by openly equating intelligent design with creationism. [BPSDB]