I searched the diaries and could find no mention of the Showtime series,
Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!, and I feel it's encumbent upon me to make mention of it to the dkos community.
I would describe the show as investigative journalism dipped in sarcasm and sprinkled with healthy skepticism. Basically, Penn & Teller, along with a damn good research team, call "bullshit" on a multitude of topics, including organizations, businesses, and even religion to name a few.
What I love about the show is its "nothing is out of bounds" attitude, which can be seen just by this short list of what P&T have taken on in just the first 2 seasons:
- P.E.T.A.
- Safety Hysteria
- The Business of Love
- War on Drugs
- Recycling
- The Bible
- Yoga, Tantric Sex, Etc.
- Talking to the Dead
- Second Hand Smoke
- Feng Shui
- Bottled Water
- Creationism
- Environmental Extremists
While I love Air America and my HBO, Bullshit! is a refreshingly independent voice in socio-political commentary. Sure, Air America, dkos, and Jon Stewart do a great job of calling bullshit on the right-wing extremists, but rarely hold the left-wing extremists to task.
I'll admit that activist conservatives scare me 1000x more than their liberal counter-parts, but that's only because the right has most of the power at this point in time. If I were suddenly transported to an alternate universe where the U.S. was dominated by fundamentalist atheists trying to force the entire country to conform to veganism, then I'd be more scared of the liberals and looking for a conservative version of Howard Dean to save the country.
I guess my point is that I can't stand the far left any more than I can the far right, and Penn & Teller are the first ones that I've heard give the far left a good dose of legitimate criticism. The reason why they appeal to me so much is because every one of their arguments is based solely on logic and not ideology.
To demonstrate what I mean, I'll cite two examples of P&T calling "bullshit" on both sides of the ideological spectrum:
- First the right takes the heat in the episode about Creationism follows a small school district in Alabama in which the religious right are trying to get the board to vote in favor of including creationism in the curriculum. Lot's of fiery rhetoric is played from the bible-thumpers, along with lots of baffled scientists who think the idea is ludicrous.
Then Penn & Teller settles the whole debaucle with a brilliant bit of logic. The two of them stand beside a podium with a bunny rabbit on it. They both cast a vote on what the sex of the bunny is. Penn holds up a card with the female symbol on it, and Teller holds up Prince's weird logo. So one vote for female, one vote for Prince. Their point being, of course, that science is NOT a democracy. No matter what their vote, the sex of the rabbit doesn't change.
- Now for the left, when they tackle PETA. The whole episode pretty much demonstrated the extremist nature of the organization and the vast hypocracy it demonstrates. P&T could have sat this whole episode out and just let the interviews and file footage do the work, but then it wouldn't have been as funny. This is an organization that:
- condones the fire-bombing of animal testing facilities, while its leaders use medications that were developed using animal testing;
- protests outside of city animal shelters where animals are put to sleep, and viciously harasses the people who work at them, however, PETA itself euthanized nearly 2,000 animals at its own headquarters in 200? (don't have the exact year handy right now)
- discretely funds extremist violent organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front, who routinely bombs animal testing facilities.
They end this show with a list of hundreds of medicines & treatments that we would not have today without animal testing & research, including most diabetes and dialysis treatments, two that my grandparents would be dead without
So there endeth my little plug for the show. Go check out the clips on their website. I don't have Showtime, so I downloaded a bunch of episodes via various P2P networks. I liked it so much that I ordered the 1st season DVD set from Showtime's online store.