Waaaaa. First I get a pile of porn in my mailbox (wait, that’s not so bad…except that none of it matched my particular interests), and then I get sent a free DVD: Expelled. This is shaping up to be the suckiest birthday ever.
Alright, I confess, the DVD was a good present, so I could have a copy in my archive of creationist material. And it was obtained by an industry insider who didn’t have to pay for it, so no money passed to the hands of Premise Media, which is even better. It’s actually appreciated, so thanks Stranger Who Asked That His Identity Remain Secret. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to watch it, though…I haven’t seen it yet.
I am kind of bracing myself right now in case some well-meaning admirer has commissioned a dump truck to drop off a load of squid poop in my yard, or something, though.
To celebrate your birthday, watch the porn and Expelled in one sitting with a nice bottle of your favourite hooch. You will dream the most wonderfully bizarre dreams about Ben Stein tonight.
So, planning the collection phase:
Would a squid diaper smother the wearer? I don’t want PETC getting their jets hot…
I already told you this on facebook when I wished you a happy birthday, but I saw Expelled on Friday and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’ve heard. Blood doesn’t run out of your ears or anything like that. Just sit back with some popcorn and have a good time laughing at what’s said.
Things to look out for: Michael Egnor (I think) saying he hates it when people call him a creationist and the movie ridiculing the idea that aliens could have seeded life while advocating creationism.
Patricia probably has the trebuchet loaded with troll poop, ready to fling it at whoever sends you squid poop. Just give us the coordinates.
Sooooooooo I should cancel the squid poop?
Troll poop loaded!
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you squid poop, make… er, um… I can’t imagine it would make bad fertilizer. Hm.
I guess you could make squid-poop brownies and give them to your enemies. But that’s probably too juvenile. Sorry, it’s all I’ve got.
I hope you have tolerant neighbours, PZ. It’s going to take a few shots to get a proper bracket going.
Um, I thought you said that you had a DVD of it, PZ.
And Fiziker, Expelled was very bad, although I don’t know what your expectations were. For me, it turned out to be less shrill than I expected, since the men who made it say such goofy and outrageous things–especially Stein.
I thought it was endlessly dreary (saw it on Youtube). Bunch of boring old clips put in without any sort of nuance or apparent knowledge of how to satirize anything. To be fair, I didn’t watch it so much as I heard it, mainly because the visuals really were so boring that I couldn’t keep watching. I glanced now and then, to see that I wasn’t missing anything, and I’m fairly sure that I did not.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Oh, and if the birthday isn’t going well, PZ, hopefully you can accept this:
HAPPY MONKEY!
Happy birthday and as always, happy monkey, PZ! I’m sorry your presents haven’t been pleasant, and you have my best wishes for a better day.
You didn’t get a copy of Expelled, you received a limited edition Ben Stein Stupidity Frisbee in a neat little carrying case. Don’t know what to say about the porn though… LOL.
Still Happy Birthday PZ!
I actually just saw Expelled sitting on the shelf in the local Target here. Not sure if I would want to spend $19.95 on it, though. I guess they’re trying to make up for the fact it didn’t become the number one box-office Documentary.
Happy Birthday, PZ. Oh, and good luck with the squid poop :D
You criticise Expelled, and then admit you haven’t yet seen it!
I just hope you have a good excuse for criticising a movie you haven’t seen.
Perhaps being thrown out of the cinema by the makers would count…
http://tinyurl.com/apdeh3 Happy Birthday!
#15 Steven Carr
Nom, nom; Morning Troll Meat!
You’ll have to pay me to see “EXPELLED”. I’d rather see the worst of the “Star Trek” films before seeing that risible piece of cinematic mendacious intellectual pornography.
Anyway, I hope to have time to see “Watchmen” this week….
What, PZ you don’t like to watch Ben Stein running
around with that “I’ve got a pickle up my ass”
expression on his face?
I too saw Expelled for free. It wasn’t worth the price then either. I never finished it because it gave me a headache with all of the crap cuts and parade of IDiots.
Many Happy Monkeys, PZ! Enjoy your birthday and don’t break the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics unless you really really want to.
I wonder what kind of mushrooms sprout from squid poop?
Could be fun.
Except, instead of seeing god you see chutulu.
Oh wait
anyway.
My problem with using psychedlics ( a bunch of times) was NOT seeing god. Imagine that I couldn’t even conjure up the old fart as a hallucination.
I did see a lot of Jerry Garcia, however, so I’m not complaining. Every silver lining has a touch of grey.
I wasn’t able to get squid poop, but I did have some octopoop and some cuttleshit sent your way. Enjoy!
Strange, I had that very same hallucination. A lot.
My favorite hallucination of all time, especially the audio part
Greetings from Ireland. Just been following this site for a few days now and thought I’d tell you how refreshing it is to hear of Americans who AREN’T ignorant bible bashers.
I mean we all know you exist, but you’re so sadly overshadowed by your outspoken majority.
Great to hear the numbers of non-religious people are growing over there. I daresay it’s something your country badly needs.
Keep up the great blog!
Squids poop?
Watch out for those mushrooms — you might see what Animal Man saw.
PZ, would you prefer we round up as much cephaloporn as possible and send it to you from throw-away email addresses?
Except that we really do believe, which is why we persecute and suppress religious people.
That’s what they tell us, and they don’t lie, so…
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Happy Birthday chief! I’m gonna celebrate this day with an attempt to get myself one of those belgian waffle irons. So I have something to defend myself with these nasty Comfortians show up arond my place.
BDC,
did you ever check out this band live in the 70’s?
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/KingCrimson/Improv__Asbury_Park.mp3
Definitly a contender in that era and genre. The above is ’72 LIVE, pretty hot for a four piece.
Just like Jenny McCarthy and many others in the antivaccine movement whine how much they hate being called “antivaccine.”
No never saw them, but I have heard and liked their music. Good stuff.
I was more of an 80’s 90’s dead head. I don’t think my parents would have been cool with me going off on tour at age 7. Though, I would have loved to be on the 77-78 tour.
Happy Birthday Dr. Myers! May your day be filled with joy and squid.
Should curiosity ever get the better of you, there is a version of Expelled (on YouTube I think) which includes helpful subtitles pointing out what is wrong with everything Ben Stein and friends have to say. It is still painful to watch, but the subtitles make it bearable.
well, happy birthday. And, since you don’t want the squid poop, I’ll have to dig around and see what other types of poop I have laying around here.
I have done ‘shrooms only once. Interesting. Nothing mystical. I remember every “p” in Raindogs by Tom Waits exploding from my speakers.
I remember my friends coming back from seeing Rambo III. (This was a long time ago.) I was not about to give Stallone a penny so I stayed home and tripped. They told me what a great plea for humanity the movie was. Their lies were hitting me like the lapping of waves and it BOTHERED me.
I ate chocolate covered peanuts and declared that I was not tasting the chocolate covered peanuts, I was tasting the process of eating the chocolate covered peanuts. From that, I declared that I was a derivative of myself, like in calculus.
I had a friend telling me that I had to freak out, that was the best part of the trip. He later explained that the theme of my trip was self control, that was my freak out.
It was interesting but not an event I have been in a hurry to do again.
I am still alternately laughing and “awwwwwwww”-ing over the mental picture of a baby squid in diapers. …
wait… aren’t their anuses…anii…anus’s …. pretty close to their mouths???
I wonder if they would potty-train faster because of this….
Perhaps being thrown out of the cinema by the makers would count…
Perhaps being lied to by the filmmakers would count.
Well, happy birthday, PZ! (I think.)
Laura,
Greetings from that bastion of liberty known as New York City. Some of us – and we’re not usually thought of as Americans by some of our fellow Americans – tend to be far more ecumenical to those who treasure some belief in a Deity (or Deities), not counting of course certain people who post frequently here.
Hope yours is a grand and glorious Saint Patrick’s Day (BTW, I am sure someone else posting here will tell you who my favorite high school teacher is… hint: you’ve probably read all three of his memoirs growing up here in NYC and in Limerick.).
All the best,
John
Laura #26 wrote:
This is one of those interesting cases where a word or phrase used on one English-speaking country means the exact opposite of what it means in another English-speaking country.
In America, a Christian fundamentalist who is always quoting from scripture is known as a “Bible thumper.”
Someone who likes to debunk and insult the Bible is a “Bible basher.”
Evidently, the folks in Great Britain use the second phrase to mean the same thing as the first. I don’t know if they then use the first phrase — “bible thumper” — to mean the same as “bible basher,” or to mean the opposite — or if they don’t use it at all. But I’ve seen confusion result from the semantic mix-up, and bet others have, too.
Happy Birthday PZ!
@41 Evidently, some of you folks classify Ireland as “Great Britain”. This causes much frowning and muttering of oaths amongst my people.
The Biologista #43:
ah, my apologies. But I thought they’re called the British Isles!
You should watch it with friends and hot buttery popcorn. Maybe an MN Atheists or CASH event? The boisterous laughter and knee slapping might make it more tolerable. Although I’m not sure how that could be possible. I downloaded it about a year ago and haven’t “found time” to watch it yet. It looks utterly insipid and ignorant.
Thanks, and I hope you have a fabulous St. Paddy’s day too!
I’m guessing you are referring to Mr McCourt; I haven’t actually read all three! But he is a truly inspirational man.
Overlooking the semantic mix-up of the use of ‘Great Britain’ ;) – the phrase ‘bible basher’ does cause confusion here because some use it in the same way you would, and some in the opposite way. I don’t know why, I guess some lines got crossed along the way. At least my comment left no ambiguity as to my intended meaning!
@44
The British Isles and Great Britain are not synonyms. The primary denotation of the latter is the largest of the former. Using Great Britain when talking about Ireland, is like using England when talking about Scotland. (I suspect that it is worse than counting Southerners as Yankees.)
Historically Great Britain contrasts with Lesser Britain aka Brittany.
Ireland is part of the British Isles, but not a part of Great Britain. To get more complicated, Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom but not a part of Great Britain. Keeping up? ;)
Janine 37
Your friend seems a little weird since ‘freaking out’ is not usually desirable under any circumstances. But it sounds like you had fun.
But you really haven’t lived until you can hear your friend speaking, and he is not saying “You have to freak out”
He is saying “blab ba yama shrruguls mau mau ”
You can detect that it’s English being spoken but you can no longer make out the words, and, here’s the fun part, that constantly talking voice in your head, you know the one the meditators are always trying to shut up?
Well that voice is still rambling away, but it sounds like ” Glabba hook snooty hmma ramma ding do” At this point, not even you have any idea what you are talking about, or even who is listening to yourself, since yourself is speaking some other language, then it all begins to sort of fall apart from there.
It is a brutal form of meditation so to speak, but you can always dance so remember to keep a path clear to the volume control and work it on out.!!
YEEEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!
lOOK OUT Emma Goldman, there’s a revolution in my brane!!!!
Where would anyone get an entire dump truck full of squid poop??????
lol. Happy birthday.
My birthday was just yesterday. =)
I’ve never heard the “thumper” variant used by Brits. Can’t say I’ve heard any simple soundbite phrase to sum up Bible critics, really. With Church of England being prevalent here there isn’t a whole lot of Bible anything going on, what with your average CofE service being a nice talk and a bit of a sing-song (I went along to one myself when this excellent African steel band was playing, and I doubt I was the only atheist in the place). Eddie Izzard sums up the CofE pretty well.
I hadn’t noticed this particular misunderstanding myself; there are more amusing linguistic oddities to chuckle over though – “fanny” being the funniest by far…
Hi Laura,
GASP! You mean… Americans have an international reputation as idiot Bible thumpers?!?! Whew! So glad I’m securely locked down in the fortress of San Francisco, where we’re all godless sodomites. Although, you can’t be too careful. We might be invaded. Maybe I should call the mayor and have him stock up on squid poop to throw at the ravening hordes sweeping in from central California.
Porn isn’t a joke for the girls who get trafficked into making it. It also isn’t a joke for the women who are victims of sexual abuse who make up the vast majority of porn “actors.”
Exploiting people in porn is every bit as offensive as religiously dogmatic jerks.
Ooh, the refrain in “Clap Hands” really crackles, don’t it? :)
I tripped fairly frequently in college (what can I say, I went to art school,) and the first time I did ‘shrooms, I definitely didn’t see god. In fact, I had an Atheist Revelation(tm)…there I was, feeling the universe vibrating around me in harmony, and I was never more sure that there really was no god, just the here and now and everything in it. Spent the rest of the night noodling around with clay and thinking how freaking AWESOME my brain was for the neat chemical reaction I was getting to play with.
Never saw Jerry Garcia, but I did get to watch Hindu temple figures in endlessly copulating fractals in the pattern of my friend’s area rug.
I can think of nothing more revolting than whatever your particular, non-disclosed pornographic interests are.
He was more than “a little weird”. He regularly stayed up for three or four days straight because he swore the hallucinations he had were better than drugs.
What made all of this even funnier was that and other friend could not understand why I would ever take a psychedelic drug. She was the same person with whom I would sometimes smoke some pot with. Yeah, that threw me for a loop.
Kristine 39
Look at it this way. If PZ never watches Expelled, he’s in the same company as Richard Burton, who claims to have never watched any of his films. He also claims to have been drunk while filming every movie except Whatever Happened to Virginia Wolf, where the character was plastered the whole movie.
I say
Don’t watch it, and tell ’em “Richard Burton and I do NOT watch our own movies” and stick your nose proudly into the air, and maybe burp a little.
Argh. I fail at HTML tags. Sorry, back to lurkdom for me, I clearly can’t play with the other kids.
Damnation. Now how am I going to fit that great big Kwok of shit into the trebuchet with a full load of troll poop?
I’ll have to add more stones to the counter weight, and heavier rope…*wonders off grumbling*
I “watched” Expelled, if by “watched” you mean spent the first 45 minutes or so angrily talking over the idiocy with a fellow atheist, and then wandering out of the room once the movie decided to take a detour to Nazi Germany.
I would point out that I have seen all of (for example) The Privileged Planet and even some horrendous Lee Strobel videos — mostly fueled by outrage, of course. But Expelled isn’t even good fodder for outrage, since every claim it makes is convincingly debunked at expelledexposed.com.
Happy Birthday, PZ, if indeed birth was the matter of your arrival.
Otherwise, happy Spawn Day, Anniversary of Manufacture, Annual Celebration of Arrival onto the Human Plane or Nanotech Assembliversary.
Alternatively, congratulations on being poofed into existence last Thursday, memories included, along with every other denizen of the planet.
What about gay porn? Or the porn actors that actually like doing porn?
I know it’s been said before but Expelled truly is an amazing piece of hack work. Putting aside the film’s obvious factual errors, biased reporting and intellectual dishonesty, it’s, well, very poorly made. I can only assume that no one associated with this enterprise thought to hire anyone at all familiar with movie-making since a first year documnetary film student could cobble together a more compelling narrative. Perhaps just as the presence of actual scientists threatens the sanctity science in their minds, the presence of actual film professionals threatens the sanctity of film?
Ben Stein in: Masturbatory Trainwreck
Happy Monkey, PZ! Would you accept coprolites in place of modern shit? They have the advantage of being far less stinky. Though now that I think of it, they would do far more damage if loaded into that trebuchet. Patricia, let me know if you need more ammo.
PZ, you should watch it. The reason is simple, one should always be familiar with the most common objections to ones stance, and Expelled most likely will become a reference for creationists. Thus it’s in all of our interests to see it.
(I’m a subscriber to the Kirkegaardian stance of meeting those we teach on their level, that’s why I’m promoting seeing the movie even though we “know” it’s worthless)
“Ben Stein in: Masturbatory Trainwreck”
Now there’s a visual I won’t soon shake! Thanks!
What made all of this even funnier was that and other friend could not understand why I would ever take a psychedelic drug. She was the same person with whom I would sometimes smoke some pot with. Yeah, that threw me for a loop.
Why? Pot is not a hallucinogen, and fucks you up less badly than drinking alcohol. I’m another one of these “will smoke pot, but oh no, you are not convincing me to drop acid” types myself. Hallucinogens fuck with your personality if you do too much of it, and I like myself just fine the way I am. (I’ve seen it firsthand, like when an ex-friend of mine started doing a lot of acid and shrooms, and turned from a bleeding-heart liberal into a glibertarian nihilist yuppie asshole in a matter of weeks.) I also got to “babysit” two people through an acid trip when I was 16, and you never have that much trouble with even a roomful of stoners, as long as you keep enough munchies around.
Happy birthday, and as to porn – show some flexibility.
Happy Birthday PZ!!! At least you know you won’t get tossed out of THIS viewing of Expelled, although it may get tossed out of this viewing.
You’ve never tried my friend Cristine’s brownies, have you?
“except that none of it matched my particular interests”
Lemme guess… tentacle porn? :-)
Rubber, now that’s the funniest :)
(UK “rubber” = US “eraser”; US “rubber” = “condom”)
Janine
I don’t do trips much anymore, last time was
oooooo
waaaay back in January 1st 2009,
I was at This Party which was also a wedding.
The first thing you see in the vid is the bride and groom’s first dance, and they have a wedding cake on their head, and then the wedding cake begins to spew flames and explosives into the sky, and then you will notice that they are joined by many others with iron hats spewing sparks and flames and explosives (yearly dance of the firecracker hats)
I should mention this is Texas, BTW.
I was detonating dry ice bombs in the corner which are really loud and fun, but one of them went off in my hand and almost blew my thumb off, so I was mostly spewing blood, but I wrapped the thing up, and kept on partying (without the dry ice bombs) and I just got the cast off end of february, and it is mostly back to normal except there is no webbing between my forefinger and thumb anymore, it all got blown away.
So if you are going to trip, boys and girls, you should not play with powerful explosives and blow your hand up, because it is a waste of good shrooms, and it get’s blood all over your clothes.
Anyway, fuck all this crazy texas shit, I’m going back to dancing.
Sastra and MPG, though basher is commoner than thumper they both mean the same thing over here in the UK. I.e. both a bible basher and bible thumper is someone open about their belief and is generally meant derogatorily as we tend to frown on overt displays of religiosity.
I’m absolutely sure there is nothing on the DVD that PZ is either unaware of, or would be surprised at, or would find memorable… except…
…one set of scenes: the pompous Berlinski at his elegant Paris apartment paid for with DI stipends, reclining almost horizontally in his chaise lounge, head tilted so far back you can see up his nostrils to his olfactory bulb, languorously declaiming to Ben Stein why biology is as nothing to mathematical physics which in turn is as nothing to pure mathematics, etc. etc.
If you’ve followed all B’s output from about 1996 as I (and I think PZ) have, it is pure gold.
Scooter, that is insane! I am not sure if I mean that in a fun way or running away in terror.
John Phillips
I was just rinsing my whitworth spanner in parafin, packing it in, my bits were all wrong, and Lucas, Prince of Darkness struck again.
You should watch your copy of expelled with the lie-correcting subtitles PZ. Perhaps that would serve to enlighten the experience a bit.
Just realized that this year your bday is on Square Root Day! So Happy Square Root day too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_root_day
That was EXACTLY my impression at the time. Everything was still attached, totally numb and not Terribly bloody , but it sure changed the direction of my evening.
urg…sorry @#80…this is what happens when I’m on less than 4 hrs sleep a night for the past 2 weeks; I become an imbecile. Did I at least give everyone a laugh?
scooter, LOL. However, all my tools are metric nowadays and have been for decades. Though I think I still have various imperial measure tools stored away somewhere.
A much better birthday present: Obama overturns Stem Cell Policy
Happy Birthday!
Bloody great. Now Cactusren wants to add coprolites to this stinking mess…that’ll over load the cocking lever…
I thought sending porn to someone’s inbox was the “typical liberal response”?
#83 John
I had a love affair with British Motorcycles for decades.
The problem with maunuals it that they are precise, so you have to understand all the words. After awhile I learned British Mechano-speak but not after once melting wax to clean a gear cluster because the manual said to use Parafin.
US Parafin=Wax UK Parafin=Kerosene
still got the 850 Norton Commando and a 68 Bonny but I haven’t cranked them in years
@ Laura (# 46) –
‘Tis the man himself (Incidentally his current wife is a great fan of evolution.).
But I won’t say more about my dear Irish-American “Dad” (I’m a former student of his.) lest PZ accuse me of name dropping.
Best,
John
PS @ PZ – While I did wish you happy birthday elsewhere, I forgot to here. So I truly hope that yours is a great birthday…. and please don’t waste it by watching “EXPELLED”. Am sure you have better means of occupying your time. Maybe a fine recent recording of one of the Beethoven symphonies, courtesy of conductor Osmo Vanska and his fine Minnesota Orchestra?
Set.
Setting.
aaaaaand eschewing powerful explosives.
Got it.
Tune in, turn on, drop out,
blow up.I am kind of bracing myself right now in case some well-meaning admirer has commissioned a dump truck to drop off a load of squid poop in my yard, or something, though.
Seeing as how you are allegedly my own personal ‘Christ figure’, you can expect the customized crucifix with your image upon it to arrive, any day now.
Oh, and Happy Birthday!
Scooter, we need to party sometime!
Seeing the title of this post and hearing it used in the premiere of Ashes To Ashes, being a music geek, I just have to post this.
And scooter, this is probably the best song about a British motorcycle.
Funny thing, Hugh Cornwell and Richard Thompson were in the same band as teens, before RT was in Fairport Convention.
I’ve seen this confuse people: In the US, to “table a bill” essentially means the opposite of what it means east of us or above us.
To get that true Expelled feeling (whooo), by rights (or wrongs) you should set yourself up in a lawnchair outside your house and watch the film through the windows?
On second thought, you could wait until it’s warmer, and have a family barbecue outside. That way, you won’t feel compelled to concentrate on the movie.
I’m sure squidpoop is good for the carrots (I was gonna say broccoli, but I have a vague recollection that that doesn’t do well with too much fertilizer).
Seriously, squid poop?
Happy spawningday, PeeZed.
Perhaps the announcement this weekend that the number of Americans identifying themselves as being without religion is at an all-time high may also be a nice birthday present.
Happy Birthday, PZ!
You make it sound as if they’re not still around. The sort of thing Fripp is doing in that (very fine) audio clip is a really early prototype of the “soundscapes” he and the various ProjeKcts (sic) are doing. KC haven’t done a new album since 2003 though.
Re: Acid. Can’t knock it. It really straightened my mind out, well, to the extent that it is staightened out, which isn’t very.
Happy Monkey.
HazelStone #54:
While I agree with you that vulnerable people should not be involved in sex work, most porn stars are in the business quite consensually (the existence of sites such as XTube and RedTube, where people make their own porn flicks for the joy of exhibitionism, would seem to support this even if I had no other proof), and I’m sure quite a few people in the porn industry who were abused are in sex work to reclaim their sexuality from the people who had stolen their control over it through rape and abuse. The fact that some pornography is exploitation does not necessarily imply that all of it is; how can it be if all participants give informed consent to be involved?
As for pranking someone with porn… well, I guess I can only say that it’s a good thing that there are companies like this one are willing to check to make sure the recipient actually wants it. It’s an old and somewhat dishonorable tradition, so I can’t really object to it, but… yeah. It’s good when it’s possible to shut off the pipe before the sewage starts flowing.
“Keep your pecker up” in Brit-speak refers to courage. In the US, it refers to PZ’s new fan practicing his bizarre fetishes. Ugh.
What a dilemma. Part of the mess in the sling is carrying on a cheery conversation. Proper behaviour would be to sing the Sunny Side of Life…oh dear, oh dear…
87*
Several manuals available in Europe really crack me up…
One of the famous ones ‘the Haynes manual’…reputedly offered this advice for 650ccTriumph Bonneville owners…
‘When adjusting the timing chain…take precaution that your hair does not become entangled in the mechanism’
The same procedure in the Haynes for BMW owners was …
‘When adjusting the timing chain…take precaution that your tie does not become entangled in the mechanism’
Happy Birthday and Monkey PZ :D
Janine et al:
I’m honestly curious – why would anyone ever want to take hallucinogenic drugs?
I’m by no means an anti-drugs fanatic in general. Alcohol I indulge in myself from time to time; tobacco and marijuana I don’t, but I understand why people do, since I’m told they help one to relax. But LSD and shrooms I just don’t get; I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would want hallucinations.
Personally I’ve had few experiences more unpleasant than sitting alone in my room and reading a Philip K. Dick novel. I absolutely hate the drug-induced surrealism of those books; when I stopped reading, I felt disoriented and disconnected from reality, a feeling which I absolutely hated. I also hate surrealist artwork, for much the same reason. I don’t know why, but those kind of things just terrify me. I don’t understand why any sane person would take hallucinogens for recreation.
Like I said, I’m not particularly anti-drugs, nor am I intending to be preachy; as someone who regularly posts here while drunk, I have no right to lecture anyone about their lifestyles. But as regards hallucinogens, I just don’t get it.
PZ, I expect that in addition to the squid poop (octopie?) you will be receiving about10 inches of new snow and you may get a day off courtesy of mother nature. Happy birthday!
Acid? Who said Acid?
Oh no, that was so then, and this is so now.
But…don’t tell anyone, but once in the far distant days when I had the privilege of being at Oxford, some friends and I took some microtabs and….now that really was weird – my how those gargoyles came alive! Cartoons man, and it was all real! So I went round the Anthropological museum and saw the shrunken heads and the tribal fetishes, and then – because one of us knew a lad who lived there we went – wait for it – round to Lewis Carrol’s house, oh yes, Mr Wonderland’s own pad….I mean, uh, eh?
Narrow corridors, two old ladies knitting in the kitchen…and upstairs to listen to The Doors on the stereo and smoke dope.
Now, that was a trip man.
Don’t do it now, of course. 12 hours tripping and no sleep afterwards. Nah. Not now – but then;)
Oh, Walton – that’s why!
Scooter, ah, I had forgotten the paraffin difference. I envy you both the Commando and the Bonny. My best friend back in the late 60s had both as well as a 66 SS and I was always pinching his keys when he wasn’t looking. Not that he minded as he ran a garage and had a slew of bikes including a few BSAs. We lived in a small country town with miles and miles of great bike roads, so when we went out for a spin, whichever he was riding I could choose any of the others. My personal favourite was SS as I am small and I could handle it easier than the Commando, plus for country roads it had far better road handling than the Commando. Oh boy, does that bring back some memories.
One, it’s not just hallucinations there is a buzz involved.
and two it goes REALLY well with music, especially live music.
personally I don’t do them any longer, well if I do it is very rare and usually involves a trip (no pun indented) to new Orleans. But I partook in my share in college and the decade following.
PZ, I think you could raise some money for the charity of your choice by signing copies of “Expelled” for a nominal fee. I’m thinking you could come up with a two word review to go along with the signature as well, to make sure your true feelings about it were understood.
I’d buy one.
I watched expelled recently and thought it was an excellent documentary. Ben Stein was a bit too melodramatic though. “The Darwinists tried to eliminate the new threat [of Michael Egnor]”-
And then he explained that Egnor had received some responses to an essay he wrote. How this can be called persecution is beyond me. But overall it is quite sad that all these scientists are being persecuted and denied tenure for just wanting to publish some material critical of Darwinism. even though it is accepted by most scientists, I don’t think they should threaten scientists who hold the minority view or try to criticize them. Overall the documentary has interviews with top theologians and scientists (Like John Polkinghorne and Allister McGrath and Johnathan Wells and Guillermo Gonzales) who support academic freedom and top atheologians and evolutionary biologists (like Dawkins, D. Dennett and PZ Myers) who are opposed to ID so you can tell it is fair and balanced. The part where Stein went to Germany and spoke to the German lady about Hitler was also informative. I have my reservations about the part where they said evolution leads to atheism though.
SHOCKER!
Shocker #2. Facilis doesn’t actually know what happened but buys Steins garbage hook line and sinker.
John 107
Agreed, for the real nice twisties, the Norton is too big, more of big sweeper bike. I much preferred the bonney in the turns, nimble and perfectly balanced.
I built the ’68 Bonney and stripped it down close to a cafe bike, with the TT straight pipes, then the coupe de gras, I bolted on a ’79 front end with the lockheed disk. You could really get it screaming knowing you could scrub the speed for sharp bank with that front disk.
I had it down to just over three hundred pounds, but had eventually put the battery back on after getting stranded a few times after dark.
PZ, Happy Birthday and God Bless You:)
Do not even dare suggest that Facillis go into this hurl.
I’m already up to my corset in shit and tax receipts.
Mr facilis – may I call you that? – the pretense that academics who reject evolution suffer is untrue. As you’ve heard countless times, the real situation is that the academics thus “persecuted” are not denied tenure because they don’t accept the prevailing orthodoxy but because they don’t do and bloody scientific work.
Science labs are tolerant of scientists’ views – after all science can be done by anyone regardless of religion or politics – and anyone rejected on any kind of ideological grounds would be rightly protected by their colleagues.
Don’t forget, Ben Stein lied about many things in an attempt to sell his idea, and in his stupid film.
But then, you know all this and are just trying to be provocative, aren’t you?
Rev. BigDumbChimp: …and two it goes REALLY well with music, especially live music.
I doubt you and I share the same musical tastes; I mainly love choral music – particularly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir – and pipe organ music, as well as some country and western, bluegrass, gospel and related genres. As an outstanding example of my preferences, my absolute favourite piece of music of all time is the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I doubt that hallucinogens would enhance the experience of any of these things.
I hate, hate, hate any drug-inspired music. I can’t even stand late Beatles songs (though their earlier stuff was at least tolerable), or, indeed, pop and rock in general. Let alone anything more recent that falls within the “club dance” and “rave” genres. Ewwww.
And doesn’t the use of hallucinogens produce an instant reaction in a few unlucky people of completely frying the brain? So I’ve heard.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool. You just admitted that you have no reason, no logic, and that you are dimwitted fool. You found Expelled interesting. It is nothing but a lie. But then, godbots like yourself love lies. That is why you tell so many.
No surprise that [sic]fail liked Expelled.
Facilis, for once in your silly assed existence, try to do a minimal amount of research instead of swallowing bullshit and going of on an anti intellectual flight of fancy. Here is what happened to those “educators” who stood up to “Darwinism”. But I guess you need your god to hold the knowledge together for you. And your god is doing a piss poor job of it.
Scooter, I liked the Bonney on the country lanes as well. But, there was just something about the SS that made it feel like I was putting on a pair of expensive hand made gloves rather than climbing on a bike. It just went wherever I pointed it, simply straightening out the twistiest of roads.
I think you may be right. But I didn’t say your live music. You asked why anyone would do it and i told you why I did it. Seems you don’t like any kind of music that includes improvisation.
You are really limiting yourself with that statement. And Inspired may be too strong of a word for much of it. Enhanced or attributed to but not inspired for much of it.
This is not meant as an insult, but that isn’t surprising in the least.
On this we can agree.
I doubt it very seriously except on some very rare cases that were exacerbated by other factors. But I don’t know this for a fact. I do know that the people who I’ve done these with that were of strong character usually never had any issues. The people slightly unhinged were frequently a problem so you could be right.
Don’t forget the lie-correcting subtitles! http://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=27.0
You’re quoted in them quite a bit. Maybe they could take the sting out of watching this cheese-eater of a movie. :^)
Seems you don’t like any kind of music that includes improvisation.
Not true, I do like some jazz and blues (though by no means all of it).
I doubt it very seriously except on some very rare cases that were exacerbated by other factors. But I don’t know this for a fact. I do know that the people who I’ve done these with that were of strong character usually never had any issues. The people slightly unhinged were frequently a problem so you could be right.
Well, I’m slightly unhinged anyway without ever having touched any drug except alcohol (and I was more unhinged before I started drinking). I have been told that most psychoactive drugs – even marijuana – can exacerbate existing mental health problems to the point of provoking psychosis. As I am someone whose mental health is generally rather fragile, it doesn’t seem worth the risk for me.
I am, however (as I’ve said before) in favour of legalisation of most of these substances – marijuana certainly, LSD etc. possibly. I would say that the right to take a given drug should only be denied to a competent adult if that drug is physically addictive to an extreme degree (since someone who is hooked cannot be said, in any real sense, to be exercising free will). Thus there’s a sound argument for banning cocaine, heroin etc., but not those drugs which are psychoactive but don’t create a physical dependency. Certainly they are harmful; but if adults want to harm their own bodies, that’s their lookout. Just as I have a right to drink alcohol, so too others should have a right to smoke weed. (And so too I should have the right to collect firearms, but that’s another issue.)
You’d think it would be drugs OR guns, not both :P
These two quotes do not go together :)
No squid poop, but ?
Happy Birthday.
Walton @ 103
To start a new religion, or get an altered perspective on the world, then use that one, and your regular one to formulate a synthesis, such as: after spending a weekend at the Grand Canyon on shrooms, maybe George Bush wasn’t such a good idea after all, or whatever.
Tell that to weirdos like Jesus who wandered around in the desert for 40 daze, and Muhammad, who sat in a cave til his mind went blinky. That’s when you see cool stuff and suffer major delusions like ‘God talked to me’ and he told me to skin you alive!!!
Technically, drugs like LSD, Peyote, and psylocibin are NOT hallucinogens. They only alter perception, they do not cause one to hallucinate.
Stuff like Jimsom Weed and DMT and other lesser known psychoactives are hallucinogens, also alcohol in excess over time , and some narcotics can cause hallucinations. Staying awake for long periods of time is a sure bet if you want to hallucinate, which is why speed freaks go batty.
The old school psychedelics are more accurately described as mind altering.
If you are staring at your favorite stuffed bunny on the sofa on 350 mics of acid, that bunny will definitely move around and change shape, and might turn into a dragon, or Jessica Simpson with a melting face, or Jesus or whatever, but that is not an hallucination.
An Hallucination is when you are staring at your stuffed bunny, then you hear a sound behind you, and you turn around to see Jessica Simpson walk into the room with Bart Simpson.
In other words your mind creates an image from nothing, as opposed to altering something that actually exists, which is clinically a huge difference.
Suffice to say that trying to describe a psychedelic experience is like trying to describe a sexual experience, words do not suffice, you have to do it to get it.
I…
It’s…
The…
I…
Do you wish to retroactively ban tobacco and alcohol then? Cocaine can be addictive for some (many) but by no means all. Heroin I have little personal experience with and little knowledge of it other than what you see in popular culture so I won’t comment on that.
Well, Religulous has grossed almost twice as much as Expelled (despite being released six months later), so maybe there is a glimmer of hope for this world…
Walton
blockquote>I hate, hate, hate any drug-inspired music.
You do realize that the juxtaposition of those two statements is a denial of reality more fundamental than even the most powerful drug-induced delusion.
I agree, you do not want to throw psychedelics onto a quavering psyche, the results can be awful, I’ve seen it.
“If you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few songs.” – Bill Hicks
The few clips I’ve seen on YouTube from Expelled, as featured in some of Thunderf00t’s videos, are plenty for me, fine thanks. Ugh.
Anyway, Happy (belated?) B-day PZ!
Fuck it
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/KingCrimson/Easy_Money.mp3
Fripp Taberknuckle sky saw
Sven – I totally agree.
Now this is what I regard as total drug stupidity. Heroin (no,not me, ever) is the best pain killer there is. If you’re dying of cancer, or something painful, pray you get given that. 10x more effecive than morphine, say. Now as I understand, in the US it is illegal to use it, even in hospitals, even if you’re dying in agony. They do use it in the UK, but not in Ireland, and not, apparently in America.
Why? Why have a drug with a well-known benefit, and let it only be abused by drug addicts?
Morality, presumably. What does it say about recreational and medical drugs in the bible? Oh.
@29
Cephaloporn as requested?
There’s even a poll to play with.
http://wis.dm/scenes/1-yes-and-know/questions/510123-cephaloporn
Can I just jump in the drug debate and point out that you can die from drinking alcohol, that many people have a hard time letting it go, and even in non-lethal doses it can cause severe, life-altering behavioral and perceptual distortions in users.
*gack* I just got a call from Paul Broun… let me recoup…
What I’m saying is that our society is hypocritical about drugs in how it separates out alcohol as if it is somehow safer–it’s actually very dangerous.
scooter, your video was fun to watch but it had me on the edge of my seat having seen a person’s hair go up in flames from little more than a candle flame and having seen a mortar launch into a person’s hand leaving them luckily with only second degree burns.
Hmmmm. Now, if I see a hullicination which is there, would that be different from seeing one which isn’t there? And how would I tell? And if my perception were altered so that I was hallucinating, would they really be hallucinations?
Trust me hallucinations are real, and hallucinogenics do cause them. Or perhaps I was just seeing things?
The acid test, as it were, is were things the way they were, when they weren’t, different from the way they were before the way they were when they weren’t, and afterwards are they the way they were before the way they were then?
I trust this makes the matter clear.
I apologise. The section reading: “the way they were before the way they weren’t” should have had an extra “they were” in the obvious place.
The meaning is severely compromised without this addition, as no doubt you can see.
Sorry about that.
Ah, now those were happy days. Or were they?
Well, OK, I was over-generalising in claiming to hate all drug-inspired music; that isn’t true. What I hate is surreal music, just as I hate surreal novels and films. I hate the novels of Philip K. Dick; I hated The Manchurian Candidate (the modern version, I’ve never seen the old version) and Twelve Monkeys; and I even hate looking at weird record covers. And I hate late Beatles songs. One of the worst is Eleanor Rigby. Musically I’m sure it’s objectively great; but I just find the imagery deeply disturbing.
By contrast, I love hymns and choral music, organ music, and old-time country and gospel. This is part of the reason I was so attached to religion for so long, despite having little intellectual basis for believing in it.
A few examples of stuff I love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coa3Z-ar92I
And, of course, the awesome Mormon Tabernacle Choir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmTWVJ_pXBk&feature=related
But I sense that my taste is rather different from that of everyone else here, so I’ll shut up about music now.
You sure hate a lot of things. That can’t be healthy, especially hating Philip K Dick.
Walton wrote:
Dear freaking FSM, Walton – did you really write this? I mean, seriously? Do you know what you’re left with when you only listen to drug free music? Céline Dion and fucking Boy Bands. I’d rather be dead, literally dead, than live in a world of drug-free music.
Forget getting Walton laid. Our money would be better spent getting Walton high.
Doesn’t sound like you should do hallucinogenic drugs, since, I assure you, they are surreal.
But Walton, were you ever youthful?
Straight to fogey in your 20s seems somehow a shame.
I respectfully disagree. Drugs just shouldn’t do some people.
In all honesty do you really believe that? I saw in the expelled movie they were talking with some of his colleagues and I remember one person was frank in admitting he called Gonzalez a religious nutcase and idiot. I also remeber there was an atheist Hector Avalos who launched a campaign against ID and Gonzalez. I understand that granting tenure is a complex process but I find it hard to believe that his colleagues tried to protect him or that Ben Stein would lie to us.
Do you know what you’re left with when you only listen to drug free music?
Yes. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Who are AWESOME.
Forget getting Walton laid. Our money would be better spent getting Walton high.
Well, given the choice, I’d far rather have the former experience than the latter.
There’s your problem, get out of the realms of belief and start looking at the evidence.
And even if they were unfairly treated, so what? It still doesn’t mean that there’s any supporting evidence for their ideas. Just because we call you an idiot, it doesn’t make your lame assertions any more valid. It just means that you’ve been called an idiot.
Ok I’ll research more. I’m sure there are more angles to what is Ben Stein covered in the movie. But aren’t you a bit troubled at how all these people who promote intelligent design or criticize Darwinism somehow get fired?
I believe the point of expelled was not necessarily to prove that ID was correct, but those that promote ID are unfairly treated by the scientific establishment.
But aren’t you a bit troubled at how all these people who promote intelligent design or criticize Darwinism somehow get fired?
They don’t. See here.
Hector Gonzales may well be a religious nutcase – they are the only ones who reject evolution, after all – but if were getting on with his job and doing science he would be left alone. There are one or two “scientists” who are creationists here in the UK and they are left alone. the problem with biologists of course, is that the subject is meaningless without evolution.
And why wouldn’t Ben Stein lie to you? I assume you think that Michael Moore did.
But why do you bother posting such provocative twaddle?
Do you have nothing of any sense to say?
Showing that individuals who advocate ID are being treated unfairly is not showing that ID is being treated unfairly. Science is not about the person, it’s about the evidence presented. The man who came up with the theory of plate tectonics was ridiculed his whole professional career. Yet now it’s accepted science. Why? Because the evidence supports it.
And that’s what ID lacks – supporting evidence. It’s not about the personalities, it’s not about what scientists believe in God, it’s that there’s no evidence to support ID. So when advocates act inappropriately in order to give the illusion of scientific support, then it’s obvious they will be cast out. But the way to go about things in science is not to whine persecution and seek public support – it’s to show the evidence that your position is right. And that’s where ID fails. It’s nothing more than a PR game, and whining that individuals were not fairly treated is just a distraction from the lack of evidence.
Facilis,
HA HA HA…oh, wait, you were serious?
Funny, when it comes to PKD, it seems the the drug the fuels his work is speed. He had to keep cranking out novels in order to make any money. And psychedelics really do not enter the picture until The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik. And the drug elements tend to be very paranoid, witness the actions of Fred/Bob in A Scanner Darkly and the eulogy that Dick writes in the end..
The one thing that does connect all of the stages of his career is the telling of his stories through multiple view points with differing views of reality. This is true of early works like The Eye In The Sky, acid dreams like Three Stigmata and religious works like Valis and The Divine Invasion. It does leave one wondering what is going on.
I can see how a person with an absolute view of reality can have a hard time with PKD. But I doubt it was because of the drugs. People are left scrapping against actions much larger than them and there is little comfort to be had. Though his heroes tend to be average working joes trying their best despite the impossibilities laid against them.
Are you kidding? Facilis, if I didn’t know better I’d be tempted to call Poe at this point. Seriously–that’s like saying that Ann Coulter would never lie.
Walton #141 wrote:
If the “everyone else here” refers to Pharyngula readers, that’s a pretty diverse group, ranging from teenagers to retired folks. There’s going to be plenty of overlap on aesthetics — even Mormon Tabernacle Choir and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” My own taste in music is pretty eclectic, the stuff on my iPod runs the gamut, and yes, it includes … Enya.
I suppose by facilis’ definition, Religulous was not fair and balanced because Bill Maher only talked to theists, and since there were atheists there then there wasn’t equal screen time. Damn agnostic, he ruined the whole film by not listening to any people who actually opposed religion – because fair and balanced means presenting polar opposite opinions in equal time and letting the viewer decide, right facilis? By only having religious people on there, Religulous is nothing more than a pro-religious piece of propaganda.
I’ve never taken any illicit drug, but I love psychadelic rock / metal. Some of it is amazing stuff, Pink Floyd in their golden years (Meddle to Animals) is nothing short of sublime. Mastodon’s Blood Mountain is one long crushing psychadelic trip.
Holy S***… I never thought I’d actually see someone genuinely trying to defend Expelled as fair…(or balanced)
I seem to remember one of PKD’s books saying on the jacket that it was directly inspired by some of his experiences with acid. It’s interesting though that so few books that I can think of were. Hunter S Thomson, William Burroughs, Tom Wolfe – who else? The influence on music though, was of course very profound. The 60s and all that glorious music would be virtually unthinkable without.
Drugs are, of course, not an entirely bad thing. It’s just that those in charge of us use different ones.
And Maher’s an anti-vaxx nut. That for me nullifies any work supposed to be about rationality, or mocking its opposite.
I think Facilis is serious. He sees his false religion and imaginary god threatened by secularism. So he will lie and bullshit to try to get us to believe the same delusions he does. So he sees ammunition in a movie that is well exposed as a lie, since he wants to believe the contents (atheists and evolution bad).
Facillis you know nothing about Hector Avalos. Now stop dumping more piles of troll shit everywhere the sling is full you little gob-shite.
And it’s simply being contrary. He likes being paid all this attention – I bet he’s a whore for the doctor’s, and the Saviour’s ear must be plumb gnawed off by now.
Please Jesus, listen to our compromised friend here, just so we don’t have to.
What sort of troll is he anyway? Young, old, catholic, protestant – oh who cares. He’s wrong in any religion.
BrokenSoldier, you have missed most of Facilis the Fallacious Fool. (Welcome back by the way!) He appears to be a total whack job. He tried a presupposition argument for god that he couldn’t even present properly, and which we total crushed, and goes on and on about reason and logic, while showing none of his own.
facilis is one of the dumber trolls to come on here in recent memory. He tries to play the philosophy game without really knowing philosophy, and his whole proof for God rests on the impossibility of the contrary – when he doesn’t actually understand of what the contrary actually is. He’s said so many stupid things that even after him making hundreds of posts on here I still want to write him off as a poe. Complete moron, can’t even hold his own arguments up let alone make a dent in others.
Are there ever any religious posters who do come here and post interesting stuff? Bit of a bad show if Jesus only sends us the ones he can’t sort out himself.
Scott Hatfield?
But aren’t you a bit troubled at how all these people who promote intelligent design or criticize Darwinism somehow get fired?
Christ on a FCCing crutch no, facilis the FCCwit. If some moron made the mistake of hiring facilis to teach logic anywhere, especially at a private Catholic school, his family would be lucky to survive the aftermath of the tar and feathering and being ridden out of town on a rail administered by the entire town, not only to facilis, but to anybody responsible for unleashing the black hole of fallaciousness that is facilis, upon an unsuspecting populace.
Firing is a kindness. Some trolls just need stompin’.
It seems there has been a little bit of a flood of that kind of thing ever since Comfort (laughingly) referred to himself and his kind as “empirical folk” who require “evidence” in his elephant idiocy.
Just one? Mind you, you guys, and even me, can be a little unforgiving sometimes….still, you’d think some of the clever ones would at least try.
Sastra – I like Enya & Loreena McKennitt too. My favorite CD is Invoking the Muse (brilliant frame drumming) by Layne Redmond. If you like some real eclectic tones try Irfan (Bulgarian), and Stellamara (Hungarian, Bulgarian, Portugese) especially if you like the oud.
Now back to the bloody taxes. >:[
Patricia #173:
Thanks for the suggestions, I wrote them down.
I’ll suggest Niyaz — electronic Persian.
Good. Marble Arch please, and can you beat a £70 fouling charge? It’s been a rough night.
(We spiked Walton’s drink, tee hee – for a while he fancied himself as a thinker!)
. Overall the documentary has interviews with top theologians and scientists (Like John Polkinghorne and Allister McGrath and Johnathan Wells and Guillermo Gonzales)
ha…
hehehe…
BWAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
*damn* I can’t breathe I’m laughing so hard.
Wells as a “top scientist”.
*whew*
*wipes tear away*
DAMN boy, now that’s funny shit.
next you’ll be telling us Sung Yung Moon really IS Jesus Christ.
Electronica? “Deep forest” is very nice, pygmy singers, electronic overlay, lovely.
FFS, I thought we were done even needing to post this, but what the hell:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
once you read that, facilface, your eyes will open*.
*Ha, as if that were even possible.
Happy B-Day Prof. Myers.
Digitize the dvd onto your computer
Save the porn movies onto your computer.
Mix them together.
Release compilation DVD.. might be a good seller and you can retire early and spent the rest of your b-days traveling the world with the trophy wife *grins*
We can call it… Sexpelled
walton:
but I just find the imagery deeply disturbing.
O.o
…relax on this here couch and tell us all about it.
all the lonely people, where DO they all come from?
do you know, Walton?
something tells me you REALLY need to take that stick out of your ass and loosen up a bit, before you become a self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness.
We can call it… Sexpelled
too late*:
*but I’m sure you already knew that :P
If Johnathan Wells gets to wear the accolade of “top scientist,” then I think I have little choice except to rip up my diplomas, move to Baja, and start writing cheap airport romance novels.
I’ve got both midterms and lab reports to grade this week, and that plan sounds pretty good.
They must be top scientists – except for the fact that in Gonzales’s case, he was denied tenure because his early promise quickly faded – due to his lack of grants, research proposals, and publications. And this all occurred right about the same time he picked up the ID flag and tried to run with it.
We could co-author the romance novels. What do you think? Rich, 19th century Victorian settings? The plots would simply write themselves.
Sastra – Well I’ll be! I have Niyaz six degrees. *picks jaw up off floor*
Ichthyic, CJO and I also linked to that site. Maybe we have to be repetitive under the hope that he actually reads it. But he did quote my rather insulting message to him.
OK, time to hurl. Happy birthday PZ! (you might put on a vinyl poncho)
You know a film has to be bad when it’s almost universally panned by critics: 4 positive reviews out of 41 on Rotten Tomatoes. 0 positive reviews by “top critics”
Some of the top critics had this to say about the film:
“One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry. “
“This is propaganda, a political rant disguised as a serious commentary on stifled freedom of inquiry. “
“The film’s flippant approach undermines the seriousness of its discourse, trading less in facts than in emotional appeals. “
“This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions, segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, etc.”
NO MORE BIRTHDAY!
right, let’s count the days for our end. The death alone is certain.
Perhaps you will have sickness, perhaps you will have not; perhaps you will be stung by a serpent, perhaps not; perhaps you will be devoured by a wild beast, perhaps you will not. And so look at all evils; everywhere is there a “perhaps it will be,” and “perhaps it will not.” But canst thou say, “Perhaps you will die,” and “perhaps you will not die”? As when medical men examine an illness, and ascertain that it is fatal, they make this announcement; “you will die, you will not get over this.” (Augustine of Hippo in Uncertain)
Ahh, Simple Simon the religious Lieman. Laying down a cut and paste again. PZ, you should disemvowel or ban idiots like Simon and Nat whose major contribution are cut and paste. If they can’t use their own words, they don’t have a message, and aren’t engaging.
Perhaps you will have sickness, perhaps you will have not; perhaps you will be stung by a serpent, perhaps not; perhaps you will be devoured by a wild beast, perhaps you will not.
perhaps we will be fucking bored to death by Simon?
perhaps not, if we toss his ass into the dungeon.
see, we can take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.
bye, fucktard.
Wow great comment facilis
ooops. simon
pfft who cares.
Wow great comment facilis
I was thinking more along the lines:
Walton, you’re a University student in the UK for crying out loud; surely there are more interesting things to listen to than the Mormon Tabernacle choir – and you can probably get to see them play live without much effort (unlike us here in Australia).
Get your hands on some Radiohead (preferably The Bends and OK Computer), Elbow and Muse.
Simon – Quick grab your jelly meat and run outside, the lord is waiting for you! You’ll recognize him right off
Don’t hold the lord up, he’s got lot’s of sinners to send to hell.
Walton:
Frankly, I think all record covers are a little bit weird.
hey, I like bluegrass too… at least this one band.
Simon:
Iz my Jellimeat big enough now?
nom nom nom
When it comes to music, personally I find myself very affected by anything I’m listening to. The side effect of this is that my musical tastes change strongly depending on my mood. During times of severe stress I listen to nothing but classical music because I find it calming. At those times I really can’t listen to music that I would otherwise enjoy.
If Walton’s references to a fragile psych aren’t tongue in cheek, his taste might simply reflect the music he finds that sooths his mind.
Also, Eleanor Rigby creeps me out.
107 humans per minute die around the world
1.78 per second
107 per minute
6390 per hour
153 thousand per day
56.0 million per year
3.9 billion per average lifetime (70 years)
when and how are you going to die ?
cancer, aids, heart attack, airplane crash or car accident ?
certainly you are in the waiting list.
Simple Simon the idiot Lieman. Still no point. Religitards don’t have points. Either post a point or shut up.
If I knew that I’d try to do by best to prevent it. But then if I could prevent it, then I wouldn’t know how I could, and thus a paradox is born.
when and how are you going to die ?
i dunno, but I’m getting reasonably sure how your tenure on this forum is gonna end.
Is your jellimeat big enough to grok that?
How? Death, I should imagine – but it won’t happen in my lifetime.
Go away, you lackwit. Could I suggest you try class A drugs as a way to succed in life? It would sure make an improvement on your progress so far.
And you’d get lots of friends, plus the occasional free board and lodging in a place full of religious people.
Simpering Simon must have just found out that someday, he will die. And Simon, being the simple sort, assumed that everybody else has the same level of intelligence as he does. So he is trying to do us a favor by letting us know.
Run along Simon, the grown ups are talking.
Simon,
I think you should focus more on this Augustine quote (which someone here has quoted on this blog a few times):
“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men….
Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren ….” – Augustine of Hippo
Damn it! Where was I when the discussion became interesting? Drugs and music!
Ok here’s a shocker for you all. Almost certainly none of you has ever taken LSD. The compound is highly unstable.(thermolabile) What we (heh) had was lysergamide. 10 times weaker, but can be heated to boiling without breaking down.
What, not real acid? Well it sure tasted like acid.
(And some of it was “operation Julie” LSD!) Well be sure that if there’s an “interesting” drugs discussion, I’ll be there. I often think that there’s perhaps a little regret from some people that they didn’t take psychoactive drugs when young.
I can’t personally believe it’s not part of any thinker’s heritage. Then, look at Walton – that’s what not taking drugs does to you.
I think it’s time this blog got a bit more pschychedelic, and I’ll happily put the psycho in that.
Anthony @ 139
Anthony, I realize that my nit-picking around what is or isn’t an hallucination or what does or does not cause an hallucination i.e. what is or is not an hallucinogenic compound might seem arcane or delusional, but it’s actually a beaten to death subject in psycho pharmacology, which is not exactly a hard science, as the human mind is a selective organ, and the study of it is therefore subjective by nature as it is all dependent upon which elements are selected as facile or predominant and the selection process is processed by the subject of the study itself resulting in feedback loops and whatever that thing is called when you seem to be looking into mirrors which are parallel to one another while doing hits of nitrous in an ice cream parlor with a maniac from cape may new jersey while tripping your brains out under the counter when his wife walks in, and shakes her head and rolls her eyes and this is all you have left to hold on to as you exhale and everything dissolves into a pulsing vibrating wang wang wang sort of inverted tie dye collapsing into a black hole, while some little voice in your head tells you, oh shit we’re in trouble now, but even though you are incapable of actually seeing anything in realWorld TM due to cascading nightmarish paisley fractilinoids, are they really hallucinations, or are you just imagining things?
I hope that clears things up, however:
The freaky doctors over at psycho pharmacolgy still say, acid NOT hallucinogen, so they must be right, otherwise how come they get to write the text books?
Best advertisement for drugs ever. “Take drugs, otherwise you’ll end up in a Randian state.”
Though I’ve never taken drugs and I’ve turned out alight… fuck, I need some pot!
Fuck me – that was you?
I think we’ll be the judge of that.
I think you can be the judge of suck my balls!
No. but seriously. I must have thought I saw the things I thought I saw, then. But if that isn’t a hallucination, then what is?
It is a valuable insight to see the world through the medium of a hallucinogenic drug. It shows you just how much of your normal perception of the world is simply down to neuronic lassitude.
And when it’s over, it wears off, leaving just a sparkling memory of what it was like having a different mind.
But magic mushrooms taken in an autumn woodland with a Beethoven Late Quartet playing…I swear God himself enjoyed it.
Your point?
Where you referring to the superfluous one in 56.0?
Ooops, the “h” was unnecessary in in “Jesus H Christ”.
@Feymanic
Do you think Ben Stein was not fair and balanced in his coverage of the scientific controversy of Intelligent design? I think he represented the Darwinists/atheists well.( He has an interview with Dawkins any fan of his must see.)
-to others
I will go to the website you guys linked. However I hope you will watch Expelled with an open mind and learn about intelligent design and the controversy and what Darwinism does.
@Kel
Do you listen to The Mars Volta? I like Pink Floyd and Mastodon too.
Love The Mars Volta. Listening to them right now actually.
Facilis. We know about ID and the manufactroversy as well as all of the “incidents” mentioned in the film. It is garbage.
There is no controversy among scientists regarding ID. The incidents in the film were grossly distorted and in some cases out right lied about.
Facilis, your mind on topics against atheists and evolution is so open your brain falls out. Skepticism requires an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out. That also means everything is questioned. And Expelled has been exposed for the huge lie it is. We will watch merely to gauge the stupidity of the arguments. Since your brains fell out, you can’t recognize the stupidity. You reason and logic not.
I think one troll needs to give an other troll pointers about music. Dammit, I like all three of those bands.
Facilis, we are well aware of what ID is and what ‘controversy’ there is around it (Hint: the controversy is not academic) and we are well aware of what ‘Darwinism’ does and the film labelling the holocaust as as result of evolution is both intellectually dishonest and historically wrong. Hilter rejected evolution in favour of Lamarkism, and his acts against the Jews were done in God’s name.
*sigh* this is what happens when propaganda is played to the ignorant.
I knew about this fake controversy and ID long before I had ever heard of Expelled, my friend.
Facillis the Fathead – I went to the theater to watch that drivel. Guess what? I live in the heart of Fundyville and only 36 other people showed up. Isn’t that amazing! The whole town was plastered with fliers, yet the christians didn’t come out. No church groups. No thousands standing in line, 36 fundies and 1 atheist. What a blockbuster.
Better documentaries to look at the creation vs evolution controversy are: PBS Nova’s Judgement Day, BBC Horizon’s The War On Science and the film Flock of Dodos. For a web resource, visit http://www.talkorigins.org and search for the term “cdesign proponentsists”
Remember facilis, you’re coming onto a biology blog – even the non-biologists here are more familiar with creationism than you are. We’re not ignorant on the matter, on the contrary the ID movement has been well refuted in academia. It’s just a shame that the cdesign proponentsists are professional Liars for JesusTM who avoid academia like the plague. Behe submitted in print his idea for irreducible complexity almost 15 years ago now where he compared it as revolutionary as Einstein. In the almost 15 years since then he has not submitted the idea for scientific review. What does that say about the movement?
I mean, who are we to insist that his ignorance should inform his ideology? wait…
Fa
cilisIf by “fair and balanced” you mean in the Fox News Orwellian sense of the phrase than yes.
Are you aware that he lied to both Dawkins and PZ about the premise of the interview?
One of the main rules of science: if you think your own idea is super hot shit, you’re headed in a dangerous direction. You should be one of your own harshest critics. We don’t prove, facilis; we falsify. If you’re not critical of your own idea, how can you be trying to falsify it. You’re headed down the wrong path. It’s very hard to do, especially given the amount of work that goes into the idea. But it’s essential to try. Thinking of your own idea as being “as revolutionary as Einstein” isn’t even in the ballpark of where Behe should ever be.
Also, Facilis someone (I wish I could claim credit) submitted your “humorous summary” to FSTDT. It’s already made the Top 100.
Just to get an idea of what you have to write to get to the top 100 here’s a sample:
Didn’t the Dawkins interview get edited to make him look like he advocated the idea that aliens started life on earth?
Indeed it did, and it took quite a nasty job of hack-editing to do it – nasty enough to be plainly noticeable.
What I find hilarious about it is that he’s come up with this ‘revolutionary’ idea that supposedly disproves evolution yet it’s actually the same argument has Muller made almost 80 years before hand. So evolutionary theory predicted those types of systems be built and have done so since before Behe was born. Hell, the idea for Interlocking Complexity is older than John McCain!
Is that what you call “fair and balanced” facilis, editing to make the most prominent evolutionist seem like he believes in an absurdity?
Fucking brilliant
facilis’s “fair & balanced”:
fair (to his own opinion’s assertions) & balanced (with the mirage of a two-sided argument, ultimately coming down right where he left off)*
*from the Faux News Unabridged Dictionary
@Feynmaniac
Inicidentally the atheist responses to my transcendental argument were nominated for a screwball award at theologyWeb
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=2601303&highlight=pharyngula#post2601303
facilis,
That website is appallingly incoherent – but it appears they’re actually calling you a screwball first, for posting your lame ‘air of the gaps’ fallacy argument.
How did you not notice that? Oh, that’s right – you have comprehension issues.
lol, I’m glad facilis advertises that thread. His “How can you say my position is circular if you cannot account for logic?” position provides great hilarity. Especially as a few threads later he admitted that one can use logic without needing to account for it.
I will see what other documentaries I can watch but you guys should really watch Expelled.It might change your mind. For example one guy said that that scientists do not agree with ID. Ben Stein interviews a biologist like Johnathan Wells and Crocker plus other scientists from all over the world ( He meets a Polish scientist and goes to Paris and England) who support ID.
And sometimes ID-detractors claim that ID has not published any peer-reviewed papers. Turns out some ID-proponent did publish a paper but then Eugenie Scott and her cohorts attempted to make the editor lose his job. He was eventually forced to resign.
Facilis, anything you say we know is a lie. So quit saying things.
facilis wrote:
Maybe if I watched The Flinstones I’d become a Young Earth Creationist, too…
Sorry Facilis. The scientific community does not see a controversy with ID. ID is not science. A few (very few in the grand scheme of things) complaining scientists does not a controversy make. In order for there to be a controversy, ID would have to produce some actual science.
Facilis, I wholly agree with you. It is a scandal that scientists like Bill Demski and Jonathon Wells should be fired for simply voicing a commonly-heard American opinion. Eugenie Scott is a vicious man-hating harridan, not fit to wipe the boots of Ben Stein. If voicing an unpopular opinion is a crime, then I, like you, am a criminal.
But facilis, the others are being mean to you, aren’t they?
Let’s you and I talk uncontroversially.
Do you think that the best bit of a lady are her legs, her breast, or her vagina?
I’m interested to know as I design blow up ladies for lonely gentlemen and I’d like to know which part to make the biggest.
Can you help?
Actually go read the reviews of the film. It was panned as a piece of propaganda by almost all critics, the truths they pushed were distorted half-truths at best and they misrepesented scientists involved. By all accounts it’s a piece of propaganda, there’s no surprise the film has a 0% rating among top critics at Rotten Tomatoes and a 10% rating out of all critics. The film is laughably bad…
But it’s largely irrelevant, science is fought not on the silver screen but in academia. So while the discovery institute and other creationists have been publically evangelising their ideas, real scientists have been testing and working on ideas. You just don’t get it facilis, you’ve been a victim of propaganda and it’s wholly down to your ignorance. Actually learn some science. There’s a reason after all Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial won a peabody award and Expelled is regarded as one of the worst films of all time.
Sorry, Facilis, perhaps that was too forward.
OK then, they tell me around here that you’re quite the philospher.
*internationally, a few heads nod, sagely*
So can you help me with this little one:
When I said “I am”, was I?
It seems important.
Frankly I don’t think Facillis the Fuckwit paid attention to what PZ said in the film.
Wishing that religion would become a nice hobby like knitting, sounds kind and sensitive to me.
Patricia, the trolls won’t talk to me. It’s not fair. I mean, I tell lies about evolution too!
They ignore me too. It’s especially painful in Walton’s case. I ponied up for the fund to remove his poker.
But at least they don’t call you gruesome and then snub you. ;) (This game is called One Up Sniveling)
Being ignored is one thing, being responded to while what you have to say is ignored is another.
Well you guys are all edicatated. I done done with larnin on me pappy’s ne.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
shorter facilis @244:
LIeslIESliEsLIESlies
blahblahblahityblahblah
lies.
can we shitcan this dipstick yet?
LIeslIESliEsLIESlies
They’re not lies, they’re fibs. Lies are for grown ups.
But how can you say it’s a lie if you can’t account for… ummmm… the problem of induction?
/facilis
The problem of induction? Pepto-Bismol.
Ok I was reading a bit more from several sources and it seems that issues are more complexthan they seemed in the movie.
@Patricia
I think it is impractical .Of course if I have certain deeply held beliefs they will affect my public actions.
I also thnk it is a bit hypocritical. Will PZ tell all the atheists and secular humanists to stop being public about their beliefs? Should humanists and atheists be public on their issues and Christians be silent on things they oppose?
I should tell those atheists groups like this one
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-02-10-darwin-secular_N.htm
That their Darwin-worship should be like knitting and they shouldn’t publicly display it.
Facilis the Fallacious Fool. Until you show physical proof for your imaginary deity, which can pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin, you cannot ask for anything we don’t have, including the right to talk about our lack of beliefs in imaginary gods. We don’t give a shit about your delusions.
Oh facilis, is it really you? All right, forget my other questions, they wouldn’t trouble a mind like yours for an instant – I knew that.
*insert cute wagging puppy emoticon – twice!*
please please please give them a question about evolution that they can’t answer, cos they’re all stuck-up liars who don’t know shit, not like you.
If you don’t believe it, it can’t be true.
I’m ready to turn, I swear, Just…one…little..question…pleeeeeeease?
Don’t listen to him Facilis – I give a shit about your delusions!
Facilis #261 wrote:
Well, if religion was seen by its practitioners as a harmless sort of hobby like knitting — or, perhaps more similar, like following the astrology column for amusement — then atheism wouldn’t need spokespeople. In places where astrology is taken seriously — in India they were teaching it in the universities — skeptics of astrology (ie scientists) come out swinging.
The problem with religion is that it makes fact claims, and then can’t support them on common ground, playing by the rules one uses for claims in general. Its “truths” are divisive.
Admiring scientists like Darwin, Newton, Einstein, or Galileo, however, isn’t restricted to people who have the right sort of “faith.” One can be a devout Christian and respect them all, for their accomplishments and contributions to humanity in general.
I worship Darwin! If I didn’t I’d turn back into a monkey!
Facillis – How interesting that you should cite that billboard. I am a member of that organization and part of my dues paid for the billboard.
We aren’t asking christians to be silent. We are asking them to keep their religion to themselves. Keep your religion in your own home, and in your church. Why is that so hard?
@AnthonyK
Frankly speaking I am not a biology major and I would probaly get creamed if I tried to debate on a biology blog. I’ll leave debating evolution to the biologists.
If facilis has a personal theory about something fundamemental in the universe that everyone thinks is so unuterably foolish as to merit secure detention, that’s no reason not to listen to him.
Come on, facilis, just ask a quick question to make everyone pooh their pants, then tell us what you think.
They mocked Edison before he discovered relativity, you know.
Please carry on!
Facilis, you should also leave reason and logic to people smarter than yourself. So far you have shown yourself to have limited intellect. And trying to implicate that atheists should not be public with our lack of beliefs while you can say your beliefs shows you to be a hypocrite of the highest order. The right of free speech is for everybody or nobody. Until you understand that, you are WRONG.
Patricia, OM #267
Because, unfortunately, Christians are ordered by their Bible to proselytize. I work with a couple of Hindus and several Jews and none of them have ever asked me: “Have you found Vishnu (or Yahweh, as appropriate)?” I cannot say the same thing about some of the Christians at work. Proselytizing isn’t part of the Hindu or Jewish tradition. It is a core element of Christianity.
It simply astounds me just how much facilis misses the mark with almost everything he says. His complete absence of insight into what he’s arguing against shows in every post he makes. To use the words “Darwin-worship” shows his complete lack of knowledge on the subject at hand. Get an education damn it!
When I was a leaflet-er for the lord, people used to avoid me, or look away if I spoke to them. Even here in fundie land, they only want to hear about their own sect.
But guess what happens Facillis, if I sit in the park, or the public library during story hour and pull out a sock and start knitting on five needles? People are fascinated, they ask questions, they want to learn.
It’s simple, knitting is fun and useful, religion isn’t. It’s deadly.
At last! OK then, just tell everyone else why they’re wrong – that shouldn’t take long! – then get it off your chest. What do you think?;)
(Frankly, I’m getting tired of all the others they just go evolution this, reality that, testable predictions the other …it’s so boring). Now, dispatch them with a few well-chosen words, and tell me what you know, or think, or guess – they’re all equally valid as I’m sure you agree.(Oh, and while you were away, Nerd said you were the best philosopher he’d ever debated with, Kel weed his pants, and Patricia had to speak to PZ because she was late with her Darwin worship..but less idle gossip – go you!
Tis Himself – *grin* As a fifty year fool, Herself knows the answer to that question. I was trying to get Facillis to think about it. ;)
#266
I worship Darwin! If I didn’t I’d turn back into a monkey!
No, you are still a monkey with along penis and abscess anus.
((double brackets and crossed fingers for secrecy – guys what’s wrong – you said he was good – David Marjanarovic, you know, the dinosaury one with the funny c, well he said that facilis was one of the most extraurdinary intellects on the internet; plus he’s got his own video on youtube – but he doesn’t seem smart or witty like you said, and I’v tried to be nice but I think he suspects – shhhh – I think this is him now))
Thank you for the insightful commentary Simon.
Jesus, what is it with the simon-types and the penis? Of all the features to pick that you could have used there, you picked penis and anus? Telling – very telling, indeed.
Simon Simon is still the pointless Lieman. Time for a banning.
AnthonyK:
Facilis “has his own video on youtube?” Really?
Simon’s idée fixe.
It’s gotten (very) boring.
Here’s something to widen your horizons, Simon.
No, you are still a monkey with along penis and abscess anus.
Simon, are you STILL trying to come out to us?
just get on with it already. You’ll feel much better.
Fuck me, Simon! Another welcome guest! ((sssshhhhhh))
Good, now listen – I know that you, like facilis, get picked on by all the oh-so-smartypants on this blog, yes?
Well, relax. I don’t bite. I talk to everyone here.
But the thing is, I can help you. You see, as everyone else here knows, in real life I’m a very successful psychologist, specialising in psycho-religious disturbance (yes, I know,and I’ve heard all the jokes…)
So, anyhooo – I thought I’d just do a little assessment to see if I could sort you out. OK?
Now, I can tell lots of things about you already from your postings – for example their sparseness indicates loneliness. Hmmmm? It may not be what we psychologists call justified loneliness, but I’ll let you know.
So, just so we can get the process started, I wondered if you could answer one, maybe two questions for me.
So the question’s this:
Were you, as I suspect, a late bedwetter, like 15 or 16?
And if so were you punished for it?
All answers will be completely confidential, of course.
So, lets start to help you properly!
Well, late piss-a-bed, spanky spanky or not?
Quick, before the others get here….
Facilis:
This, from someone who “debated” logic?
Go for it Facilis, you can’t be creamed any more than you’ve already been. Make us laugh.
Can I get a troll-mentor badge out of this please?
All they really want is someone to love them (or enough money to pay her with).
Were you, as I suspect, a late bedwetter, like 15 or 16?
given my guess at his current age, I’d bet his mom’s washing his sheets as we speak.
oh, sorry, was i supposed to wait for simple simon to respond first?
@AnthonkyK
So when they started calling me stuff like “big gorilla” at the gym, it wasn’t name-calling. They could literally see my lack of faith.
We do not judge the fuckwitted here, Icththyic. Any condemnation is purely from their own mouths, and for amusement purposes only. We will help Simon with his “morning bed” when he has owned up to it.
Frankly, the last thing I need now is armchair psychologists – such as your good self – offering opinions.
This is serious.
Simon?
This is serious.
surely not?
…*waits for obvious response based on tangential “Airplane” reference*…
;)
We’re dealing with a soft, young mind here.
We must be careful not to damage it further.
And don’t call me “not”.
AnthonyK – er…Ichthyic doesn’t need advise from you. I fine you one turn at the spanking couch, and twenty ducats from your bar tab. >:[
Oh, stick a needle in it granny…..
* I run swiftly away, like a gazelle, eat a gazelle, and so up the wooden hill to befordshire…*
And don’t call me “not”.
LOL
You’d better run. I’ll stick a needle in your soft floppily doppiles. And one through your jelly meat.
Before you get smart sonny, remember I have five needles. *evil grin*
“but how can you say that humans came from apes* if you can’t account for why there’s something rather than nothing? “
/facilis
@Anthony #289
Frankly, the last thing I need now is armchair psychologists
good ! your first patient should be a friend of yours and you need a gynaecological chair as well to check his anus.
And check whether his penis and anus evolved well, probably the anus became vagina.
Simon,
Please seek professional help.
Patricia: They ignore me too. It’s especially painful in Walton’s case. I ponied up for the fund to remove his poker.
I only ignore you because I usually don’t understand what you’re talking about. (And when I do, it usually appears that you’re trying to say, via extensive use of bizarre metaphors, that I’m dull, humourless, sexually repressed and need to get out more. Which is all probably true, but not helpful.)
Simon,
I am fluent in two languages and can get by in three more but gibberish is not one of them. Could you please translate your post #297 into something intelligible.
Simple Simon has some issues. This is not the forum to solve those issues. Even my very, very bad gaydar is going off. Simon, seek professional, not religious, help
I really think Simon has become more unhinged recently.
I feel so sorry for Walton. When I was twenty, I lived in a big house next to a car lot full of Corvettes and DeLoreans. The dealer (who owned the house) wanted rowdy young guys who would stay up all night as renters, so his exotic sportscars would be safe. 1977. Punk explosion times, music all night, parties afterwards ’til dawn. Two of the guys were heavily into funk (Parliament/Funkadelic, Brothers Johnson, James Fuckin’ Brown), I was a Deadhead into all the new London and New York punks so our parties would have a really diverse soundtrack, and we had a biker gang (the Ex-Winos, guys who used to be in the Beer, Pussy and Motorcycle club, but had to give up the beer) for security, and no one ever bothered us.
One night: After seeing Iggy at the State Theater, we went off to the Longhorn for the Suicide Commandos warming up for Robert Gordon and Link Wray (no shit, THAT Link Wray), then invited all concerned back to our place, where large amounts of ditchweed and beer were consumed. Iggy did not puke, was polite and left about two. Beer ran out at three, everyone gone by four. One pal was still around, he offered to split a dozen hits of real Owsley with me. I did three, stashed the rest, and put on my special 12 hour reel-to-reel tape for tripping to (“Anthem of the Sun” into “Seastones” by Phil Lesh, some parts of “Metal Machine Music” for real total aural freakout and bits of William S Burroughs’ spoken word, which was just becoming available, plus mellower King Crimson and various quiet and sonically interesting world music (we didn’t call it that, then) to keep it in control for the latter part of the trip, ending with Pachebel’s canon). The walls turned blue and melted, the sky opened wide, the universe was manifest and glorious. About six in the evening, I had a snack and went to bed for a well-deserved crash.
Walton should probably not use mind altering drugs, and I would recommend giving up the booze, that shit’ll kill ya if you’re not careful. A hash cookie with “Kinda Blue” by Miles and Train for a soundtrack might be a good start – not too intense, and maybe he’ll get an idea of why improving in music is intellectually stimulating.
I hope the stream-of-consciousness writing wasn’t too over the top, I haven’t told this story in a while.
“Simon,
Please seek professional help.”
That’s what I’ve been offering, damnit! Nevermind, we’ll continue this the next time…tinkle tinkle, eh Simon.
KI – partying with Iggy huh? That man is still cool – but metal machine music + LSD – were yuou out of your mind? I’d like to see a bit more discusion about that sort of thing, particularly hallucinogenics. Some folk seem here seem embarrassed, others proudly assert they didn’t and wouldn’t but then when you have a tit like walton saying he never felt like it and then giving a list of the inside of his mind…sheesh. Well, tell that story again, another time, on antoher thread. I took acid once, went to a rave, worte about it, and had the story published in The Financial Times ..but another time.
Let’s make some people here regret the fact that they didn’t take “interesting” drugs in their youth…
AnthonyK@305
re: MMM
I just put bits of it (random cuts, but how could anyone know?) for ten to thirty seconds, just for the dissonant blast, then back to the sitars or gamelan or whatever. Like shifting from third to reverse and back again.
As far as psychotropic drugs I agree with the idea that it’s something you do to provide a new perspective, but it’s useless to make it a habit. I haven’t tripped for ten years, but part of me says the time may be right to have a look-see.
I agree. I’m glad it was mostly long ago, but glad it was. Just becuase I’m not religious or even *spits* spiritual, doesn’t mean I can’t have a few mystical experiences. Oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered, Ecstacy’s good too:) – I’ll save that for another thread…
Walton:
I know lots of people have already replied to this, and I don’t mean to be piling on… but I do have a take: I don’t understand why anyone would take drugs (recreationally, I mean) that aren’t hallucinogenic.
That is, while I don’t myself partake of hallucinogens (for a variety of reasons, most of which reduce to an excess of caution on my part… what some might call “cowardice”), I can easily understand the desire to have a cognitive experience that’s entirely different from everyday life. I see that as an impulse similar to the desire to travel to new places (it’s no accident, it seems to me, that mind-altering drug experiences are called “trips”) or to look at abstract art or read nonnarrative literature or listen to “abstract” musical forms.
What’s less clear to me is why people seek out “recreational” drug experiences that more closely resemble illness than they do travel or art or entertainment. I drink alcohol moderately — I enjoy sampling (and learning to make, and inventing) cocktails in the same way a foodie enjoys new recipes, and I also enjoy a good imported or craft-brewed beer — for the taste experience and because I find the very mild intoxication and disinhibition that comes with one or two drinks pleasant (I’m a relatively big guy, so even two strong cocktails doesn’t produce more than a tiny buzz), but I’ve never understood people who drink specifically to get hammered. The few times I’ve been really trashed, it was very much more like being sick than it was “recreational.” And while I’ve never done coke or crack or meth, the descriptions of their effects that I’ve heard sound like things I would describe as symptoms, rather than anything I’d volunteer for.
The impulse to take hallucinogens, OTOH, seems more like an artistic impulse to me. You said…
Art is often disturbing. Some would say that to be great, art must be disturbing. I freely admit that I find some art too disturbing to approach, just as I find hallucinogens too scary… but that doesn’t mean it’s not art, or that I don’t understand others’ fascination with it.
Finally, this…
…is, IMHO, a bit disingenuous: “[D]ull, humourless, sexually repressed” express problems; if you truly viewed your positions on these issues as problems (which is what you’re implicitly claiming when you say it’s “all probably true”), you wouldn’t be defending those positions so staunchly. You can own your beliefs or apologize for them; doing both simultaneously is, as you might say, “not helpful.”
BTW, I’ve got to give you props on one point: I’d choose getting laid over getting high, too.
Bill – the thing is, most times you don’t have to chose ;)
From my observation (too much) alcohol is disastrous – see “brewer’s droop”, but also, of course the connection between alcohol and rape/spousal abuse. A little is fine…but you know that of course.
As for other drugs, my observations are:
Cannabis – fine (if you can be arsed)
Speed – dunno (doesn’t turn me on, can’t imagine sex on it)
Cocaine – great (though you may be too “busy” doing stuff to do “it”)
Heroin etc – no info (though there are of course “crack babies”)
Ecstasy – makes you feel very warm and loving, but actual sex might seem a bit workaday – good for kisses, cuddles, and romance, but also makes you want to do them with strangers.
Hallucinogenics – well not really. though I can imagine the interplay of naked bodies, tongues, hands etc being very far out – but then so is opening a tin of beans. When they begin to wear off though…that’s another story.
I wonder what other people think.
And Walton’s problem isn’t that he hasn’t done drugs, but that his current lifestyle (as a young, clever, student in the UK) would make even the most out-of-date fogey here, do that head-desk thing…
And Walton’s problem isn’t that he hasn’t done drugs, but that his current lifestyle (as a young, clever, student in the UK) would make even the most out-of-date fogey here, do that head-desk thing…
Well, I would admit that my lifestyle is not the most interesting. Today I have finished an essay (which had to be in by 5pm) and am now going to the gym for a quick run on the treadmill, as I haven’t done any real exercise for a few days (far too much to do). I have been really busy lately with a position I hold in a prominent student society (from which I’m hoping to step down at the start of next term) which has caused me a lot of stress over the last few weeks. Thankfully I’ve now completed my academic work for the term, so I intend to start regaining the fitness I’ve lost over the last couple of weeks. (Having a naturally skinny physique, I don’t worry about putting on weight, but I do risk losing muscle tone when I don’t weight-train regularly enough.)
I’m not sure why I’m telling you this – just to illustrate, I suppose, that I do do something with my life besides arguing on the internet and moping about how shit things are. (And contrary to what some of you seem to believe, I’m not a regular user of alcohol. I drink maybe once or twice a week, and only in a social context. However, a few drinks tend to affect me a lot, as I have a fairly low bodyweight – 62 kg, or about 135 lbs – and am not a heavy drinker so haven’t developed much “tolerance”. Hence why I seem very far gone when I post while drunk.)
I’m not really knocking you Walton (on this occasion), it’s not big or clever to do drugs, and no one has to.
It’s just that, well, sometimes you almost seem to be boasting about your lack of a certain kind of experience. You did ask about what people got out of hallucinogenics, and I and others told you – Lewis Carroll’s house right (it’s behind Magdalen – the Master’s house, I think). That was good, and wouldn’t have happened but for the drugs.
However, that said, your problem when you post here is that you come across, not as stupid but as unbearably pompous.
There’s a name for people with ignorant inexperience putting their opinions out of Pharyngula, and it’s “creationist”. Now that’s not you – but it does seem to me that you get no less knocked than they do.
Again, this isn’t meant nastily (and when I say this here I don’t always mean it) but I’m just puzzled why someone reasonably clever like you should not be able to present the message you put across a little more cleverly.
No thread is complete without a thorough discussion about Walton’s life.
(Honestly, I think I know more about what’s going on with him than I do with most of my family. Is Pharyngula destined to become a Paparazzi blog with Walton as the sole focus?)
Crack is cocaine. Or so I’m told.
Yes, Walton, most of us here don’t share our personal problems with others. Personally I woudn’t want to. You think I want to consider men with sudden injections, straitjackets, and bars when I’m posting here?
(Aside: yes, sir, I’m just finishing)
But even if I had a boring personal life, in fact especially then, I wouldn’t share.
#314
do you use drugs ??