Expelled: Fear of Not Flying and the Story of O(vation)

UPDATED: ReligionProf received an e-mail (actually two) about Freedom Friday! When my mouth stopped watering, because I thought that meant French Fries Day, I read his sarcastic wit about being "invited" to rent a theatre in which to show Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Those Gone with the Wind allusions are becoming more appropriate by the second! (If you rent a theatre so that Ben-I-love-credit-cards-Stein can show his movie in it, do you get to bring your own treats - say French Fries - into the theatre, or do you still have to put up with what's at the concession (they named it that for a reason) stand?)

(Photo courtesy of Quidam at AtBC)



So now you know where we got the information about the super-secret, no-atheist-cooties-allowed screening of Expelled. It was Glen Davidson, Expelled debunker extraordinaire, who informed us about the screenings. And where did Glen get his information? It was posted on a Christian blog.

Well, so much for "crashing" the screening. If anything, it was this film that crashed, and burned.

Troy Britain also found another public link to these screenings. He says:

This is followed by miscellaneous links and quoted endorsements. Did you happen to catch the URL in the middle of that? It goes right to one of the RSVP pages. Glen thought people might find this interesting so he promptly posted it on several popular blogs, web pages, and newsgroups, that deal with the CvE debate.

It was found on one of those sites (After the Bar Closes on Antievolution.org) by Kristine Harley, who then passed it on to Myers, and you know what happened after that.

So there were at least two places on publicly accessible web pages where one could find links to the Expelled RSVP pages and sign up to see the film. And both apparently included the Mall of America showing.

Slap the cuffs on me.

Troy himself found out what happens when you are "invited" to see a screening of the film Expelled: you don't see the film Expelled. You pay $10 see a trailer of the film. Oh, and you see Ben Stein win another incestuous ID award, to which the audience treated him to three Minnesota "we're-too-polite-to-tell-you-to-step-away-from-the-microphone-but-we-have-to-pee" ovations.

Oh, yes, this is exactly how previews for legitimate films meant for a wide audience are screened. Who can forget those merry days when Gone with the Wind was previewed before a hand-picked audience of cave hermits who thought that the Civil War was still going on? And those chivalrous cops dressed in authentic Confederate uniforms "skulking around" [that's really funny, Denyse O'Leary!] the theatre to make sure that no one gave away which side won the war?

Shimmies to Bad at Bad Idea and Troy at Playing Chess with Pigeons (and no, my shimmies do not cost $10, nor do I know specifically where $10 blowjobs can be found. Quit asking me!) :-)

P.S. Gee, come to think of it, we haven't heard from Ben Stein on this. In fact, he's been pretty quiet about this whole incident.


Maybe he's too busy rewriting everything "from Darwin to Hitler!"

(courtesy Quidam from AtBC again. Shimmies, Quidam! I read Mein Kampf. Bleh. More on what Hitler thought was evolution here at AtBC.)