There were two GREAT episodes of Penn & Teller's "Bullsh**" tonite-

[Beaker]

on Showtime.
the two episodes on tonite should be REQUIRED viewing for all americans.
I'm well aware of penn gillette's libertarian leanings, but tonite they were right on target.
show 1- showed what Bullshit! the whole recycling industry is(xcept for aluminium)http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=r

show 2- all about what Bullshit! the bible is.http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=bible

if you live in the west, and have Showtime, don't miss it- at 9pm pacific.

[DoctorWeird]

1. Penn has appeared in "Michael Moore Hates America"

I refuse to watch him. Also several of his arguments on the "Peta" episode were silly, ie, "Peta kills animals" There's a difference between putting animals out of their misery and killing animals for food.

[teach1st]

2. Regardless

I have very little idea who Penn and Teller are aside from having a magic show. I've never seen them before. I just happened upon The Bible: Fact or Fiction? episode tonight. Regardless of anything else the two have done, it was an excellent debunking.

[Beaker]

3. your loss.

it's never a good idea to go thru life with blinders on, no matter the topic.

[DoctorWeird]

5. He's a hypocrite

He accuses MM of doctoring his documentaries to make his point best, and he does the very thing he argues against. Some of his arguments against Peta were good, but a lot were bad based on off reasoning.

[Beaker]

7. the same could be said of michael moore(and has been)...

nobody's perfect.

and btw- in just about every episode i've seen, penn pretty much admits that it's just their view of the topic, and that you're entitled to draw your own conclusions...

i'll also admit that he can be a "loudmouth", but he's just a BIG guy, and a showman...I have to give penn the benefit of the doubt about it tho, because i'm also a "big guy" with a rather large frame(6'2", 235 lbs, shoe size 17), and i'm often accused of shouting or raising my voice, when i'm not- i just have a big set of pipes.

[DoctorWeird]

9. I think the basic idea behind a lot of their shows is good

The Psychic show was particularly good because seeing those people get used was disgusting, same thing with the sex show. But Im absolutely sickened that the king of "bullshit" falls for it himself by appearing in possibly the biggest bullshit movie of the year.

[Beaker]

11. "biggest bullshit movie of the year"...?

Have you seen the film?
I wasn't even aware of it until you posted about it-

[DoctorWeird]

12. It's called "Michael Moore Hates America"

Check out the previews for it and see if you think it looks like a serious movie. Nobody has seen it yet, but the premise is ridiculous. Moore goes after big government, big auto, etc. This smarmy little jackass goes after...Michael Moore. Bravo.

www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com

[Beaker]

13. if you're calling a movie "the biggest bullshit movie of the year..."

without actually seeing it- what makes you any different than "them"???

(and no- by 'them' i don't mean giant ants)

[DoctorWeird]

14. Granted

But I have seen what this administration has done. Just because one disagrees with ways that America is run does not mean that they hate America, therefore the title in and of itself is a lie. So right off we have a Bullshit title.

And the Reason I haven't seen it is because it's not even finished yet. So it's a rush job since it's not even finished filming and it's coming out in August??? Also, the movie is meant to talk about how great middle America is. I live in "middle america" and it's not great. No health insurance, the idea of social security getting further and further away. It's not great. And Im not the only one that thinks so, lots of people do. So this idea that "America is great, la la la no problems" is a bullshit philosophy

[Beaker]

18. Michael Moore is just as much a bullshit artist as anyone-

he uses editing, half-truths and media manipulation to his advantage as well as anyone.

[Beaker]

4. where does releasing minks from a farm into the wild rank?

that's one of the bonehead acts that peta is infamous for-
showing that saying that peta kills animals isn't that much of a stretch.

[DoctorWeird]

6. He was arguing against the use of euthanasia

Which is really a silly argument. Sometimes the kind thing to do is to put an animal to sleep. Some humans would even like to have assisted suicide made legal. Like I said, SOME of the arguments were valid but some were based on false reasoning.

[Beaker]

10. I can't say that I've seen the Peta episode-

so i can't really argue about what was said or what wasn't- but i do know that peta is pretty much a bunch of goofballs with misplaced priorities, IMHO.
I have seen perhaps half of the episodes of Bullshit! so far, and there were some of them that were 'less than stellar'...but the two episodes aired tonite were fantastic...the one about recycling is especially eye-opening, and made me feel completely vindicated for opting out of chicago's POS Blue-bag recycling program.

[DoctorWeird]

8. "Teller and I would kill every chimpanzee out there with our bare hands"

"to save one junkie on the street with AIDS"

That's what Penn said. How can someone say something like that and not have skewed thinking? The trick is not to let one's own preferences into the documentary, and he does.

[Susang]

15. Exactly

Their program pretends to be objective documentary but is in reality, infotainment. Some of it is accurate, some is not.

I personally researched their claims about PETA and found some were accurate, most were half truths, some were out and out misrepresentations of the facts. I cannot trust a show to be accurate that uses radio talk show hosts as "expert" guests.

I do, however, still find Penn & Teller's act to stil be funny. I guess I'm just not Libertarian enough to fully enjoy their tv show.

[Eric J in MN]

16. I don't like that show.

Penn talks about how horrible environmentalists are, gives an environmentalist 10 seconds to reply, then plays someone criticizing that environmentalist for two minutes, then Penn calls that environmentalsit names, but not to his face.

I didn't see the particular episodes you're highlighting, but I'm describing an earlier episode.

[Beaker]

17. that Environmental Hysteria episode kind of pissed me off too...

they kept referring to this girl that the environmental group had assigned to work with them as their "hand-picked" expert on the topic, when she obviously wasn't.

like i said (or tried to), the shows can run hot or cold- but the two that were on tonite were very good.