1. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149857 by wagnerfilm on March 26, 2008 at 9:56 am

Happy birthday, professor! And what better birthday activity than another chance to beat up on Expelled? Movies.com is the only movie website to list Expelled as an upcoming release (IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Box Office Mojo all fail to list it, a good indicator of just how little buzz the movie is getting outside the science/creationist blogosphere). On its listing page, they offer a reader poll asking you to anticipate how good/bad the movie will be. Everybody needs to head on over there and give it an "F: vile"! :-)

http://movies.go.com/expelled-no-intelligence-allowed/d942707/documentary

2. Expelled Overview

Comment #149478 by wagnerfilm on March 25, 2008 at 5:11 pm

I seriously doubt the movie is getting a 1000-screen rollout. That's the kind of wide release that's pretty much unheard of from anyone but a major studio. Indies just don't hit that many screens, unless they're being distributed by, you guessed it, one of the "boutique" offshoots of a major studio like Fox Searchlight or Universal Focus.

I've heard 100 screens, which is far more likely. There is also no listing for "Expelled" on April 18 on the upcoming release page either at Box Office Mojo or Rotten Tomatoes, which there almost certainly would be if the movie were going wide at 1000 screens. So I'm thinking a very small rollout, typical of self-distributed indies.

If they're sticking to the 4/18 date, they're going to get killed. That weekend has Al Pacino in "88 Minutes," the new Judd Apatow comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," and the Jet Li/Jackie Chan vehicle "Forbidden Kingdom" all going wide. And there's another prominent indie documentary, "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?" opening in limited release, directed by Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me").

Seriously, who's going to make time for "Expelled," except for the "church bus bubble"?

3. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148797 by wagnerfilm on March 24, 2008 at 12:16 am

That's sounds like a fine idea from PZ there. Indeed, the disinformation campaign from creationist circles has become so egregious in recent years that repudiation from the scientific community needs to be forceful.

Of course, it's no surprise a guy like Wallace would interpret metaphorical language like "It's time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots," to be a call to action for physical violence. Apart from not being very smart, the minds of creationists are (in the words Dawkins used to describe their home movie) "utterly devoid of any style, wit or subtlety."

4. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148792 by wagnerfilm on March 23, 2008 at 11:54 pm

The post by PZ that William Wallace, a well-known creationist troll, links to says this:

One, I will go see this movie, and I will cheer loudly at my 30 seconds or whatever on the screen, and I will certainly disembowel its arguments here and in any print venue that wants me. That's going to be fun.

This is hardly a promise to "disrupt" a screening, unless you count cheering at yourself on screen a "disruption." As PZ makes it clear, his critiques of the movie will be reserved for blogs and print venues. Nowhere does he say he'd loudly heckle the movie MST3K style, though that's the least "Expelled" deserves in my humble opinion.

And...once more with feeling...PZ signed up for the screening the same way every single other attendee signed up for it, by filling out the appropriate request form on the movie's website. There will probably be no stopping creos like Mathis and Wallace from lying all the live-long day about PZ's "gatecrashing," but if PZ was gatecrashing, then so was every other attendee there.

So once again we see, you can reliably count on a creationist troll to lie and misrepresent. Creationists, I have found, simply can't NOT lie. It's a bit of collective psychological dysfunction that cries out for study.

5. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148224 by wagnerfilm on March 22, 2008 at 11:31 am

#47: The Austin appearance was also extensively blogged over at http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/

6. Launch of 'Atheists in Foxholes' Book Anthology

Comment #116110 by wagnerfilm on January 25, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Ducklike, I suspect the reason the focus is on the US military for this book project has to do with the fact the US is the kind of fundamentalist religion-soaked society where "there are no atheists in foxholes" is so casually tossed about as a meme. You probably don't hear the sentiment so much in Europe.

While I haven't served in the military, I admire people who have done so, none of whom I've met have been in it for nationalism or jingoism. However cynical and self-serving the lies are that politicians use in their military misadventures, as far as the rank and file are concerned, it's about holding up principles like the defense of freedom and democracy.

It's also been true that the military has provided job training, financial opportunities, and discipline in the lives of young men and women who wouldn't have had any of those things otherwise.

All of which serves to make me more livid the way Bush has just thrown away the lives of almost 4000 of them in an invasion based on deception and greed.

7. Highway to hysteria

Comment #94014 by wagnerfilm on December 4, 2007 at 3:24 pm

Amazing to me that most ex-gays claim it takes years to "recover" from homosexuality, but this guy did it at the touch of a street preacher? I doubt it.

Well, yeah. That "ex-gay" dude was such an obvious plant that he practically had chlorophyll dripping out his ears.

My snark on this sad insanity is here:
http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2007/12/lost-highway-indeed.html

8. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #92130 by wagnerfilm on November 29, 2007 at 11:14 pm

As an Austin resident and CFI-Austin member who attended the Forrest lecture, and who spoke before the State Board of Education in 2003 when ID was trying to make inroads into science textbooks back then, I'm appalled but, sadly, not surprised by this nonsense. My own thoughts, plus a letter to the editor of the Austin paper I submitted today, are at http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2007/11/teas-science-curriculum-director-forced.html . It's all leading to another big fight in 2008 to save science education. Why do we still have to do this in the 21st century!?

9. Help Counter the New Atheist Crusade to 'Evangelize' America!

Comment #79901 by wagnerfilm on October 19, 2007 at 1:46 am

"Skeptics Answered"? They must be kidding. That book is lame. I've fisked it here:

http://www.atheist-community.org/library/articles/read.php?id=662

Unfortunately it's incomplete. I should get around to finishing the thing. But what's there is enough to show how dreadful the book is, I believe.