“If two competing hypothesis exist, all other things being equal, the less complicated one is usually correct”
Willam of Occam
“Now is the time of The Quickening”
Art Bell
Art Bell, for those of you not in the know, is a national late-night talk-show host who specializes in stupid conspiracy theory, paranoia, bad science and basic stupidity. Remember “Chem-Trails”? Art’s show was where the “theory” went national.
Remeber the “Face on Mars” crap? Bell has Richard (Insane, Idiot or Fraud: You be the judge!) Hogland on his show every night or two.
Remember that recent comet that went by (Hale-Bopp?)? Remember that cult killed themselves because of the “alien ship hiding ‘behind’ the comet?”, Bell published the “photos” of the alien ship, and started telling horror stories to his listeners. As far as I’m concerned, despite his desperate attempts to deny it (and he tried), he bears some culpability (morally, if not legally) for spreading the hysteria that lead to the cult’s mass-suicide.
Art Bell should be in the dictionary under Credulous. It doesn’t matter what idiotic dumbfuck theory is being propounded, Art’s reaction is always stunned amazement ("My GOSH! I never know that aliens lived in Uranus!) or outraged indignation (“How DARE the gummint lie to us about the aliens living in Uranus?”). He allows outrageous lies to be spread on his show (I doubt that Arthur C. Clarke believes the “face on Mars” is a alien artifact).
He’s come up with the term “The Quickening”. He defines it as, well…anything. Climate changing? Due to The Quickening. Skunk-Apes in Florida molesting tourists?? The Quickening. Grey Aliens controlling our government? The Quickening. Jupiter getting hit by that comet? The Quickening. Artie, if a word means everything it means nothing. But you know nothing, so it all works out.
Mr. Bell? Please start applying Mr. Occam’s razor to your “theories”. Has it ever occured to the screaming paranoid primate cringing in terror of the unknown that is your mind that not everything everyone tells you is true?
Yesterday, you spent an hour talking about’chem-trails’. Let’s examine the theory for a moment. (Your “proof” was a mystery caller who had an unidentified “air traffic controller” who knew the gummint was spraying us with disease or poisons. The "air traffic controller knew so much that his voice had to be altered or the gummint would have him shot in the streets. Uh-huh.)
There are two possiblities; You would have us believe that the U.S. Government is spreading BIOLOGICAL or CHEMICAL weapons over MAJOR U.S. Population centers as an experiment? Why would they? If they really were that evil, wouldn’t they at least spray the stuff away from where they live? The other possiblity is that you had a Kook on. If the kook saw anything, she saw a plane that had a normal contrail behind it. Shave both theories with Occam’s razor. Which one requires the least bullshit?
Today, you spent a half-hour ranting about how it’s self-evident that we can astral travel and we’ve always had this ability. You based this on an “experience” you claim to have had in Paris. Your soul left your body and hovered over the city. Two possiblities exist: You had a dream, just like everyone else in the world, or there’s a survival ability that is so insanely useful that any creature possessing it would easily dominate it’s competition. We’d have been breeding for this talent for millenia. We couldn’t not notice it. It’s one or the other Art. Which makes more sense?
You are the single largest vector of what Steve Allen called “Dumbth” in the U.S.A. Stupidity and fear are your stock in trade. You are actually far worse than the internet in spreading ignorance. (There are good sites on the internet.)
Although several worthies have nominiated other candidates, I submit that due to your national platform, the size of your audience, your anti-science, anti-intellectual rhetoric and your overwhelming idiocy, you, sir, are the Anti-Cecil.
Fenris
And before anyone asks, let me answer: Because he’s the only thing on at 4:15 in the morning when I get up, damnit. And he’s worth listening to if only so I’ll be prepared for whatever the bullshit-du-jour that some of the slope-browed slack-jawed troglodytes that work in my building’ll be babbling about next week.