Magicians and Illusionists Penn and Teller have a popular TV show on the Showtime channel called, ahem, “Bullshit”. In homage to their debunking mentor, James Randi, they take on a number of subjects they feel could use a little “clarity”.
Click image to watch the video
They recently (last Thursday night) took on Al Gore and carbon credits. The entire 30 minute show is available via the website VREEL (update You Tube has it now, VREEL started installing Zango a couple of days ago – a spyware)
Warning: more than a few obscenities are uttered in the show, but mostly for comic effect.
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I downloaded the plugin and found it causes pop up ads to appear while viewing the video.
REPLY: Well if you use Firefox or IE7, it will block that. It’s free video, but there is no free lunch. Otherwise you’d have to subscribe to Showtime.
More than a few obsceniities I would say. There were more F words in that vid than Marine Corps boot camp.
You should have warned me it is a horror show, Anthony. I dont’ think even a river rock could restore my equilibrium easily now I’ve watched it. Truly expletive delitive depressing.
I downloaded the DivX web page player and it still wouldn’t work.
I already had the DivX codec on my machine. So, I viewed the page’s source, got the link to the video file and downloaded it. Played it in WMP.
It’s a long URL. I hope it wraps and doesn’t break when I post it. Ought to be able to right-click and “save target as”. It’s a 232 MB file.
http://vreel-791.vo.llnwd.net/d1/vreel/20000/20885pennandtell-xvid.avi?e=1217226920&h=8d6233b55850eeaafe3cbce9781d814e/.divx
Scratch my previous post. The link is changing.
I watched that last Thursday. Great show. The best part was when Drew Johnson from the Tennessee Center For Policy Research exposed Gore for his hypocrisy, and then read off the ensuing hate mail. That was hilarious! Ya can’t mess wid da prophet!
Something just occurred to me concerning Gore’s enthusiasm for carbon trading schemes and CO2-free energy generation – compare this with this.
So, my question: Is Al Jr. just finishing what daddy started?
Also available here without plug-in, at least on my computer.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/1795/218/
they should have done a skit about BOM today in Sydney. 5 degrees below average and it snowed but BOM said its not snow its soft hail
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24085664-29277,00.html
Trawki, Thats true about Sydney!!
I just saw a long bit on this issue on Russian prime time TV. It seemed as though there where 10 cm snow, children building snowmen etc.
And NO ONE had seen anything like this. So yes, we hear that this is not snow but some extordinarely soft hail 🙂
But NEVER MIND WHAT IT IS CALLED: This cold substance – call it what ever you want – has not been observed before like this.
IT IS NEWS!
In Russian TV on the 26/7, they reported HUGE hail in Krasnodar/Kransojarsk – In the middle of the summer! The reporter picked up a handfull, looked like 4 cm in diameter and there where holes in the roofs everywhere.
(In Russia it seems that consensus on the street is that GW is one big embarresing story for the west.. I have yet not talked with anyone in the east with another opinion. Better Russian scientists agree on this, and there seems to be no censur on these subjects in tv. that is… I have not seen “CO2” mentioned with one word on their tv… )
Another thing: The quit slow meltback of the arctic: Did the Alarmists ever considder that “When the ice is ‘SO THIN’, and still melt so slowly, we must have quite a shift towards colder temperatures”?
Correction: There have been snow in Sydney 186 years ago – which also might have been this “soft hail”.
Hah! A terrific show – well done!
Penn and Teller depend very heavily in this video on Patrick Moore, who is, in fact, a very reasonable, very well-informed spokesman on environmental issues, BUT neither side in this video gets into any actual data analysis–they just assert that “science says” this or that in support of their cause. Species extinction is a perfect example: Moore says at most 1% extinct in 100 years, the woman who was advocating for environmental action says 50%. From watching the video, how can one tell which number is correct?
The Rainforest Action Network should be ashamed picking “Kate” as their spokesperson. She makes it seem that all of them have no clue about the facts behind their cause, yet I personally know people involved with that group who are very well informed. I think it’s certainly true that a lot of the young people who get involved with environmental groups do so for emotional or quasi-religious reasons, but its not a valid form of reasoning to judge the truth or falsehood of a group’s position based on the motivation of the membership of the rank-and-file. It’s the same as criticizing the spokesman from the Cato Institute simply because his organization is pro-business and businesses contribute to Cato.
The real problem is people like Ross Gelbspan, who should know better…
Thanks for the link, Doug!
Does the website releasing the video have permission from Penn & Teller and Showtime? Wouldn’t want to be accused of stealing you know…
As a Showtime subscriber and someone who occasionally watches the “Bullshit” series, it’s actually quite good (in a comedic sort of way). Penn & Teller like to make fun of people who for the most part deserve it.
Disclosure: I’m a Democrat and moderately liberal…. but skeptical of the whole AGW debate (it’s way to political for my taste). I’m coming to this website to observe the science debated. It’s refreshing to watch ideas discussed without the usual character assassination going on.
Oh, and btw…. where’s the damn preview button?
REPLY: Scott, thanks for dropping by. Unfortunately there is no commnet preview feature on the blogs hosted on WordPress.com. Like you I wish there was.
Sydney’s brief snowfall on sunday afternoon was also reported in NZ, with some video………
http://3news.co.nz/News/InternationalNews/SnowmenseeninSydneysuburbs/tabid/417/articleID/64625/cat/61/Default.aspx
There was some sleet in the cold rainstorm on monday afternoon in the Sydney suburb of Artarmon.
You can find the synoptic charts here……
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/national/charts/synoptic.shtml
The page allows you to go back a few days.
There is some pretty cold air coming up from the deep south.
The greatest damage from climatism is diverting focus from the real and rapidly approaching challenge of Peak Oil with its critical need to develop alternative fuels or methods for transportation fuels.
The increase in fuel and fertilizer prices from approaching Peak Oil is already having a devastating impact on 3rd world economies and small farmers ability to support their families.
See Peak Oil Overview at The Oil Drum
The Export Land Model applied to World Oil Exports which project the need for alternative fuel resources of 6.2%/year. Contrast that with historic US oil imports RISING at 5%/year. This promises a shock of needing to replace about 11%/year for the US from business as usual.
A Quantitative Assessment of Future Net Oil Exports by the Top Five Net Oil Exporters” at GraphOilogy.blogspot.com
Peak Oil Update – December 2007: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers Khebab
The Shock Model Khebab
Matthew Simmons’ Presentations
<a href=”http://hubbertpeak.com/”HubbertPeak.com
PeakOil.net etc.
It appears that the Chief Scientist at The Met got sacked, and has been replaced by someone hopefully more sensible and less political.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080722.html
How can we trust these predictions when there is such limited skill in forecasting the monsoon for the coming season? Scientists agree that we do not yet have a full understanding of the processes going on, and that climate models perform poorly in this critical yet challenging region where the ocean, atmosphere, lowlands and mountains all interact.
http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR383.asp
Funny things is that the cold has got almost minimal coverage in the media in Australia. Our politicians are this week fine tuning our global warming bill – dont want a little record cold to get in the way!!!
Nowra reached just 9.0 degrees – when both new and old station data are considered, this makes it the coldest day since 1963.
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/illawarras-coldest-in-decades/9605
Bellambi Point, near Wollongong, struggled to 11.0 degrees, its coldest day in eleven years of records.
I love P&T BS. Obviously not for everyone though.
I DL’d this from a BT website.
Highly entertaining episode, which while containing people have been caught without facts and the time to explain them, is so telling of people’s hypocrisy. That alone is enough to not want to devote blind faith into AGW theory.
That, and proving that ‘eco-guilt’ isn’t important for me to function with goodness towards the planet. Guilt is useless if you’re unwilling to act for goodness.
AGW may seem like a way to channel people’s guilt into action, but frankly, it is NOT convincing enough for many people and me (warming due to natural or human effects) to be something that is worth fighting for.
“BOM said its not snow its soft hail”
No, surely it’s hard rain?
OT
I wonder if someone will step forward and blame the following on AGW:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/new.york.beaches.2.780980.html
C. W. Coe (formerly MrCPhysics) (05:32:12) : I think it’s certainly true that a lot of the young people who get involved with environmental groups do so for emotional or quasi-religious reasons, but its not a valid form of reasoning to judge the truth or falsehood of a group’s position based on the motivation of the membership of the rank-and-file.
True, but what is it that has attracted the emotional and quasi-religious? Is it, by some chance, the tone and content of the “public service” ads run by environmental groups that play upon emotion, etc.? I grew up in the hippie era and let me assure you, the environment movement uses the same rhetoric as Stop-the-War with filed-off serial numbers.
That same rhetoric has little more than emotional appeal, group think pressure and quasi-religious overtones. Any science involved is after-thought and any contrary evidence is immediately attacked as anti-Whatever-We-Are-For and attributed to special interests; all the while ignoring that the group itself is a special interest. It’s always Us vs. Them to these people.
You reap what you sow.
P&T are profane, but hilariously so. More importantly — and perhaps this goes over the heads of their detractors and critics — they’re also correct.
David L. Hagen…
Puh-leeze. We can easily collect solar power in space and beam it to earth. We know how to do this. Even the NYT, normally the queen of luddite BS, realizes the veracity of this and posted a recent editorial in support of it. The only reason it’s not being done now is that space access isn’t cheap. Cheap access to space is about 1 or 2 decades off, tops.
What do you think the hardline socialists etc are pushing the green agenda so hard? They realize that space energy is their death knell and it’s coming fast. Peak Oil promotion is merely another way to pad the bet, to force an expensive move to chimerae like wind energy NOW and divert funds that would otherwise be used for something realistic like space power. They don’t want abundant cheap energy. They want control. Peak Oil fear is just another tool.