HELP US EXPEL LAWMAKERS: A DI TARD-WRECK

The 'fellows' at the Discovery Institute are so kind! They must have heard I was feeling down, so they sent out a hysterical email to brighten my day!

Help Us Get Lawmakers Expelled

Dear friends,

We're excited to be able to tell you that on October 21st Expelled: No
Intelligence Allow, starring Ben Stein, will be released on DVD. In
Expelled, Stein brilliantly exposed the widespread persecution of
scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate science that challenges
Darwin's theory of evolution.

Rush Limbaugh called the movie "powerful" and "fabulous" and said Stein's
"interviews with some of the professors who espouse Darwinism are literally
shocking."

"It is surely the best thing ever done on this issue, in any medium," wrote
journalist Tom Bethell in the American Spectator. "At moments it brought
tears of joy to my eyes. I have written about this controversy for over 30
years and by the movie's end I felt that those of us who have insisted that
Darwinism is a sorry mess and that life surely was designed are going to
prevail."

Expelled had one of biggest opening weekends ever for a documentary film and
is one the top 5 all time most successful political documentaries ever
produced. Now that it is coming out on DVD we want it to be even more
successful. We want it to be possible for even more people to see this
important film.

To accomplish that we need your assistance and have two options for you to
consider...

First
We would like to widely distribute the DVD to key policy makers, opinion
makers and leaders throughout the country. Such distribution takes more
money than we have budget for right now. So, we're looking for donations to
help underwrite the cost of sending the DVD to these individuals. Donations
of any amount are welcome. The cost of purchasing and distributing one DVD
is about $25, so your donation of $100 will help us to send 4 DVDs. We want
to send out as many DVDs as possible Click here to donate now
F=H> .

Second
If you run a church or school bookstore and would like to stock Expelled we
can help you get a special wholesale price, if you pre-order 25 copies or
more. By ordering together in quantity we may be able to get the cost per
DVD reduced up to 50% off of the retail price. This is a limited one time
offer and we estimate the cost of 25 DVDs to be $300, plus shipping. For
bulk orders contact us at the e-mail or phone number below.

We have to move quickly to guarantee that the costs don't go up. The DVD is
going into production soon, so orders must be placed and paid for by
Wednesday, Sept. 17th. Please contact Janine Dixon at jdixon@discovery.org,
(206) 292-0401 x108 to start the order process.

Thank you for your support,

Robert Crowther
Director of Communications
Center for Science Culture

So many lulz in such a tiny email!

Clueless title (get lawmakers expelled from where? eats shoots and leaves?), imagining Rush Limbaugh putting on his purple glitter eyeshadow raving about how FABULOUS EXPELLED was, the fact you can get the entire first season of House for about $25, IDiots begging for money for the EXPELLED train-wreck (still), 'literally shocking'.... heeeeeehehehehe!

Thanks, boys!

(H/T AtBC)

More like this

Abbie, please, please don't make me think of Rush Limbaugh in glitter. You just got your dog out of the ER, please don't put your readers IN the ER with imagery like that, I plead with you...

Paul you just need to get some imagery absorbing crumple zones installed. I mean sure it looks like a bike helmet and is bright pink but your mental health is worth it. I still need to see this move, I wonder if I can rip it from the web yet?

By The Backpacker (not verified) on 11 Sep 2008 #permalink

Y'know, bluray replication runs about $3-5/disk for very small (~1000) runs. That's with glass masters, not burned. Packaging would probably run $1-2/disk. Drop-shipping something like that can't run more than ~$2/disk. So, max $9 cost, with very small quantities. And we know they're not going to be going for small quantities. Note: my figures might be slightly off for packaging and drop-shipping -- it's been a while since I looked at that stuff. I did some doublechecking on wholesale dvd replication, though. For large runs, regular dvds can be as little as $.50/disk.

Being praised by Rush Limbaugh is a reason to avoid that crap!

"The cost of purchasing and distributing one DVD is about $25, so your donation of $100 will help us to send 4 DVDs."

Why not just get a quote for their "bulk rates" to send out 500 dvds and mention that as the overall goal?

Wow, $100 for a $.50 DVD? You've got to be kidding me. I know they're starved for money, but making a few thousand DVDs that won't sell either is only going to put them further in the hole.

they should have titled it "Help Us Get Lawmakers Expelled". that way it would have made sense as in: help us get copies of the dvd to lawmakers. ha ha ha.

wait who's side am i on? strike the first two sentences. these people can't even write a half way decent headline

By Frankiemouse (not verified) on 11 Sep 2008 #permalink

Did you notice that the DI called "Expelled" a "political documentary"? At least they had a grain of truth in that statement, as opposed to most of the tripe they put out. "Expelled" was for purely political purposes, not scientific. I won't, however, go so far as to say it was a documentary.

How many times have these guys begged for money to fund research?

I'm willing to bet the answer is somewhere between "-1" and "1".

By minimalist (not verified) on 11 Sep 2008 #permalink

"One of the top five political documentaries" isn't saying much when Casey Luskin was talking about how he thought he could beat Fahrenheit 9/11's opening weekend pre-release.

By Der Bruno Stroszek (not verified) on 11 Sep 2008 #permalink

Well if the DVD release is as phenomenally successful as the theatrical release, those of us who like to live in the real world have nothing to fear.

By The Chimp's Ra… (not verified) on 11 Sep 2008 #permalink

Maybe it is a good time to point out that people can join the National Center for Science Education. It only costs $30 and supports a good cause. Many people reading this can afford to give five bucks a month. (If you can't, I am not talk to you.) If only half of Ms. Smith's audience either just joined or donated five bucks a month depending on their income level, it would make a nice improvement to the NCSE's finances.

/No authorization to speak from the NCSE. I just see this post as an appropriate opportunity.

Paul wrote: "Abbie, please, please don't make me think of Rush Limbaugh in glitter."

And if you absolutely cannot avoid thinking of Limbaugh in glitter, do not, at any costs, think about him carrying his trusty bottle of Viagra in his pocket.

I said don't think about it!!!

Expelled had one of biggest opening weekends ever for a documentary film and
is one the top 5 all time most successful political documentaries ever produced.

Does anyone have any links to how it actually did on it's opening weekend? Somewhere there must be a record of these things including a list of the top political documentaries. I don't normally hang out on those sites so I have no idea. I just wanna see for myself how big this lie is. (And also so I can pass it along to some right wing friends - heheh)

"Rush Limbaugh called the movie "powerful" and "fabulous" and said Stein's
"interviews with some of the professors who espouse Darwinism are literally
shocking."

This from the thrice-divorced, draft dodging, college flunk out drug addict that takes unlabelled bottles of Viagra to the Domincan Republic so he can screw 10 year old boys for hours on end?

I guess he would know shocking....

"Rush Limbaugh called the movie "powerful" and "fabulous" and said Stein's "interviews with some of the professors who espouse Darwinism are literally shocking.""

What, did they dig up (literally) infamous horror schlockmeister William Castle to rig the theaters?

Couldn't be; the director of "House on Haunted Hill" and "Thirteen Ghosts" made films far classier than "Expelled".

Rush Limbaugh called the movie "powerful" and "fabulous" and said Stein's "interviews with some of the professors who espouse Darwinism are literally shocking."

Q. What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?

A. One is a giant, flaming Nazi gasbag, and the other was a dirigible.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week! And if you like my act, be sure to buy my spoken-word album Finding Market Equilibria is NP-Hard, So Your Philosophy Is Poorly Founded, But You're Just an Asshole on your way out the lobby.

Some box-office numbers:

Expelled made only $775,000 on Sunday, substantially less than the $958,000 I initially reported, the weekend total being only $2,970,848. The amount made dropped 17% from Friday to Saturday and a further 21.7% from Saturday to Sunday. It didn't make $958,000 on Sunday, that was based on the $3.1 million projection. It actually made only $775,000 on Sunday, and the actual weekend total was $2,970,848 (per-theater average of $2,824). The take dropped 17.8% from Friday to Saturday and a further 21.7% from Saturday to Sunday. Overall it came in at #10 for the weekend, and it is presently ranked at 12% on rottentomatoes.com.

From Laelaps.

I think the last word in your post shoulda been:

"Beheheeeeeehehehehe!"

How long before they start mass-mailing the DVD with a plea for contributions? (I just received such a plea with a DVD about "Radical Islam's War Against the West.") Or, they could leave piles of DVDs on tables and counters, like high-tech Chick tracts. Stick them under windshield wipers in the parking lots of WalMart and adult bookstores.

Hmmm. I just saw a post on Daily Kos about that "radical Islam" DVD--some suspect it was designed to influence the election. I wonder if the DI's efforts are part of a Grand Obsessive Plot to keep the morons in power by distributing seemingly unrelated disinformation.