Glenn Beck has a theory on brontosauruses, and it is his, and what it is too
By David Neiwert Thursday Oct 15, 2009 5:00am
Watching Glenn Beck descend into yet another of his bizarre chalkboard rants earlier this week, it occurred to me I had heard a similar theory once: Miss Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses.
The Wikipedia entry observes:
The skit coined the concept of "Elk Theories" to describe scientific observations that are not theories but merely minimal accounts.
I've also heard the term "Elk Theories" used to describe hypotheses that mean nothing and prove nothing.
Which, you know, is what Beck's bizarre "six degrees" guilt-by-association "theory" comes down to. One can play this game with anyone. It wouldn't take six degrees to connect Glenn Beck to Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden or Timoth McVeigh, if he wants to play that game. But it wouldn't prove anything, would it?
Except, of course, that Glenn Beck is becoming so detached from reality that his programs are now unintentional comedy skits. And no, Glenn, we're not laughing with you. We're laughing at you.
Enjoy the mashup.
For the Python fans who find it sacrilegious to run the "Miss Anne Elk" skit alongside Glenn Beck, here's the original version from Monty Python's Flying Circus, Episode 31 (1972):
And for the true aficionados, here's the audio file of the original version of the skit, which first appeared on Monty Python's Previous Record (1972). It's actually much, much funnier:
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No such thing as a brontosaurus. The animal is known as Apatosaurus.
Also, a little known fact, the head that was placed on the original brontosaurus/apatosaurus was wrong. The depiction of the apatosaur that we all grew up with, really small head and really huge body was incorrect.
Then who wrote Jane Eyresaurus?
Cute. Not clever...but cute. ; o )
i'm giving it clever as well as cute.
the original fossil skeleton was found in an area that actually contained three heads. when the mount was made they simply chose the one that 'fit' best. the new mount corrected that error as well as the dragging tail.
they fitted the head at the wrong end...
The bronto/apato debate remained the province of back room discussions and obscure paleontology journals until the mid-'70s or so, after Monty Python whote the "Anne Elk" sketch.
Besides, I saw on TV that Fred Flintstone eats "Bronto Burgers", so it must be true!
Are Beck's meds not covered under his employer medical plan?
I laughed my buttosaurus off when he sort of sing-songed "...along came a spider..."
Now that's funny!
Glenn Beck is a escaped mental patient.
It would prove a lot connecting Glenn Beck to bin Laden, McVeigh or especially Hitler.
It would prove Beck as much a waste to society as those other three.
Connect him to Warren Jeffs.
ain't right.
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/obamalea...
jesus.
who will repeatedly refer to something as Elk theory. I wish them and their elk ill.
Beckywingnutville
That I've ever seen.
Hell He could have picked anyone to start that rant off with. Attila the Hun, Napoleon,John Wayne, The Queen of England. Anybody.
I gotta agree with Mick up there. The guy ain't right.
No really, the guy is out to lunch, and it's breakfast time.
How does this bozo stay on tv? I know the fux thing. But really. How did this guy get a job on tv? He's delusional.
I think the tv stations owe the country a little more responsibility for what they put on their shows.
Yeah,yeah I know.
need more coffee.
while trying to fall asleep. I really have no idea WTF he was trying to illustrate. Turned the channel after about 60 seconds. Amazing that people watch a full half-hour of this shit every night.
And they say that rock or rap music is bad for ya..
That I watched most(almost all of it) of one of these clips about Beckistan.
The clown really has slipped further into mental illness.
As other people have stated, the scary part is he has a following.
A cult like following. Someone down thread said "This will end badly."
I couldn't agree more. And he'll take people with him.
These clowns, wingnuts, and pundits have become a freak sideshow in the age of Obama. Presented for your amusement on blogs everywhere.
. .
Obama and Chairman Mao. Makes perfect sense to me. And so obvious I'm surprised anyone had to point it out.
Why not use Stalin? To obvious?
I'm surprised he didn't use Nikita Khrushchev. I wanna see the Prez go to the UN and start pounding the podium with his shoe.
Then throw it at Beckistan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iD7wk7RgUQ
I’m 56 of age, in my live time I would say the most deprived person that lived at same time as me time on this planted is Kissinger. He fired bomb children and women just for the feel of ultimate power; He was no different then Stalin or Hitler. There are so many atrocities he was a part of, but to see his smiling face as he shook hands with Chairman Mao, the same Mao who helped kill 150,000 US military men, many that where drafted in Vietnam makes me just sick. Any agreements?
I know the gut reaction is to laugh about this... but this is not funny. There comes a tipping point that should have been reached some time ago. Glenn Beck is accusing the president (during wartime and an economic crisis, might I add) of being a Communist and a Mao supporter using evidence that any journalist or judge would laugh at. You know what this would have been 200 years ago? A man shouting in the center of town every week about how the president is a traitor. And that's what it comes down to, and people are watching, and they need to remove that "NEWS" logo from the screen.
Big Money isn't that what Capitalism is all about?
where government acts like our Daddy?
"Nanny State" is Codeword BS. It's just an idiot Talking Point that is there only to rally resistance to Regulation.
The so-called "Nanny State" Glass/Steagall was replace by the Non Regulation Gramm/Leach/Bliley... and the economic situation were in now is the result.
"A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad."
Bob Edwards
Frank Zappa
"Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not."
Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993)
Urgent message to the Becker: "They're coming to take you away, hahah!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZMZ-XvvzI
Really should be beckerhead's theme music...
Is Beck going to have his invisible friend on during sweeps week?
he is there in the background.
Beck is sinking deeper and deeper into paranoia. When his television audience begins to vanish, and it will eventually, he is going to crash badly. This guy thrives on the adoration of an audience and without that he won't be able to keep it together. His life is not going to end well.
is imagining Beck's loyal viewers watching and nodding in approval.
He has created little monsters everywhere.
The disturbing part is he actually sees his audience sitting in front of him.
Glenn Beck works for Roger Ailes.
Roger Ailes is an executive of a network that enjoyed routine access to and received talking points from the George W. Bush administration.
George W. Bush is the grandson of Prescott Bush who was known to have made business deals with Adolph Hitler.
Hence, Beck is a Nazi sympathizer. That explains why he hates America and wants her to lose.
...he may be looking for any diversion that would delay the investigation into the rape and murder of a girl in 1990. I have a special direct hotline to Glenn Beck in my home should he finally feel compelled to confess his crime. But, of course, he's yet to address it, which obviously means...
It's a glaring giveaway that Beck still refuses to deal with this question. I'm not saying he's a perverted, bloodthirsty criminal or anything, but his refusal to deny these charges does force one to wonder: what is he hiding?
are far less tenuous than glen's. if there was world enough and time, i would wish to see someone do this rant of beck's with the above mentioned characters. i mean really break it down and do it word for word.
he's a fucking moron. i can't believe anyone takes that wanker seriously. it's absurd.
I love Monty Python but I cannot stand to look at nor can I stand to listen to that baby faced idiot that calls himself Glenn Beck.
What is his real name and where does he really come from?
I think his name is Insanity from the planet Stoooopid?
(just guessing here)
Okay, correct or not, I did laugh my skinny ass off during this particular show. When he tried to do the little spider song, it showed just how unraveled he has become. But my favorite part now is the guy he makes sit by the red phone waiting for the white house to call on beck's "speecial" number. I don't know how much answer guy gets paid but it must be a whole lot. His sitting there like that is a perfect representation of beck's show. Sitting by the phone waiting for someone from the white house to call. As if.
I think Olberman should call.
He can't because it's a "special number" for the phone and only the white house and beck have the "special number".
It's pathetic in a funny sort of way.
More than likely, it's not even plugged in.
Ohhh...like it actually being plugged in would matter. I'm sure Beck takes calls on that phone all day.
Do you think Commissioner Gordon calls him?
The guys in the white suits call to check on his progress, although progress in Becks case would have to be subjective.
.
This is the first clip I've watched of Beck. I really don't care what he thinks, but something made me click on the button. Now, I'm sorry I did. THIS is the level to which his viewers have sunk? What a disturbing thought for the future of this country, that there are enough ignorant people out there to make this fool popular.
Unlike sex, the more you do it (listen to beck), the worse you feel and the more child-like you become...
that includes neither adulthood, elk, brontosauri, or Glenn Beck.
There have always been more willfully ignorant, barely educated cloth-eating morons in this country than we'd like to admit. It's just that the advent of 24-hour news channels and the internet have now made their numbers generally known, whereas before they were hidden due to lack of communication. Believe it, bro - this has never been a country with a majority of sane people in it.
but wasn't Richard Nixon a Republican? Who knows what exactly Henry Kissinger (shudder) is. I seem to remember a time way back in the dark ages, somewhere around 1972, that a certain president of the United States, namely Richard Nixon, got all warm and toasty with Chairman Mao. Since then pretty well every president since has had a hard on for the totalitarian paradise of China. How come Beck didn't put Nixon or Bush or Reagan up instead of Obama? Another case of IOKIFYAR? Just wondering is all.
trying to get up a game of Pong. Pester Russkies. Tear Down that Wall. Obama is trying to find a place for his picture of Hugo Chavez.
of Six Degrees. It's easy to cherry-pick the connections that support your argument and ignore the ones that demolish it. That's why any sane person understands that, while it's fun, it's basically a useless, meaningless exercise.
Good analogy, except that Anne Elk's theory is actually true, if obvious. Beck's theory is so laden with fallacy and falsehood, well, let's just say that I want some of what he is smoking.
without the spider part.
He did have a hardship as his little show and tell signs and pictures kept sliding down the board upon which he was explaing his theory.
Yeah, it was the flaw in my ointment. Watching him announce his "theory," though, I just couldn't resist.
the fly in my ointment. Without the whole image, the metaphor kinda breaks down, there.
I feel for the people that monitor Beck and thank them for keeping us informed of his bullshit. Its only a matter of time before one of the simpleton that believe his rants kills someone, thinking it will start the new revolution. I have heard him before, after five minutes he makes me feel sick. The truth is I’d rather clean public toilets then have to listen to one full radio show of his, either way I would feel like I need a shower when finished. He only in it for the money!
At least Ann Elk's "theory", minimal as it was, was based on factual and correct observation. It was just obvious. Beck, on the other hand, is just making shit up, without any basis in reality, in an attempt to smear the White House.
Thanks to a very painful broken rib, I've been able to avoid people like Beck the past 2 or 3 weeks.
Now that I've seen this Beck clip, I wish I could get another broken rib!
Monty Python was great, however! Love the Pythons!
3 of them were on Keith's show last night....they mentioned that even today, it appears that they are most effective with 11 year old boys....that's about the time I think I started watching them!
It's the Monty Python 40th anniversary coming up.....IFC has a special on them beginning this coming Sunday evening. Can't wait!
You can say just about any damn thing and they think it is real, factual news.
Glenn Blecht, self-appointed leader of the Stoopids.
what exactly is he talking about? really. it is this; beck has some refrigerator magnets with pictures on them, and by placing them in proximity to each other it reveals a relationship between the people picutured.
And he makes that fact more apparant each and every day.
http://www.glennbeckisanidiot.com
A SPIDER! AND a DEADLY SPIDER AT THAT! Now we need a bumper sticker covered with spider bodies with Glenn Beck and other Rethuglican FACES and use the movie title, with permission of course, KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS!
.. kind of ironic, what became evident during the teabagger parties, as they professed they have 'learned' from Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh, that they hold them in high esteem?
The first is a 3-time drop out from school, the second never went, the third dropped out the first year.
Irony gets its humor from an unexpected connection. Did you really find that information unexpected?
I think this about covers where this guy is coming from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZMZ-XvvzI
This Beck episode can cause an atheist to say, " What in God's name"?
Does Beck's viewers understand what he talks about about?
Amazing!!. And this passes as journalism over at FOX REPUBLICAN NEWS.
BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE has a similar game titled 6 degrees of Francis Bacon in each issue, and they can tie just about everyone in the past to Francis Bacon through ludicrous connections, but the magazine knows that, and plays it that way, and it is kind of funny.
Glenn Beck, however, doesn't know that he's an idiot. Professionals say that the first step to recovery from mental instability is to acknowledge that one has a problem. Glenn Beck needs counseling, and as good Samaritans, we should help him acknowledge that he's an idiot.
Barney Frank had it right. "I'd rather have a conversation with a dining room table..."
PS This is why Obama shouldn't have catapulted Van Jones. If the guy was a good appointment, stick with him. It only lends respectability to these idiots when concessions are made.
How can one compromise with this? "Let's meet half way, I want Israelis to stop building illegal settlements; you want the Venusians to wear blue jerseys when they take on the Communists in your imaginary Rumpusbowl extravaganza."
After all, didn't that '7 degrees of seperation' game start with Kevin Bacon?
The name comes from the play Six Degrees of Separation, which got made into a film starring Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, and Stockard Channing. (Brilliant film, highly recommend it.)
It was only after the film came out that the game featuring Kevin Bacon eventually became popular.
I liked the movie, but not the ending.
It was like oh well there's some tragedy, but at least our shallow yuppie lifestyle has been justified.
Do they keep the joker to make everyone else looks more professional?
Beck's ramblings are as incoherant as the things shouted by the urine soaked street corner preachers, who mutter to themselves, and declare (via bullhorn) that those who don't worship Jesus would burn in Hell.....
I thought for a time this was all an act, but Beck might seriously be crazy...
even juxtaposed with the fabulous Monty Python sketch...he's just too goddamned lyingly hyperbolic and still doing the infantile morning zoo shit.
I can't even stomach looking at a picture of him. Whenever one pops up anywhere on the net, I Adblock it instantly.
Let me ask you, have you ever heard of the "War on Terror"? This frame is actually permanently welded into your brain by now, even though it's an absurd false framing of reality. You cannot remove it from your brain, a war against a tactic used to justify anything and everything the Bush administration wanted to do.
So, anytime Beck creates false narratives linking various people together and repeats it often enough to his audience, those false structures get implanted into those brains, regardless if they are consciously aware of it or not.
Read The Political Mind by Dr. George Lakoff. We must take very seriously every instance of false framing that gets shot daily through a fire hose at millions of Fox News viewers and conservative talk radio listeners.
This is how we get our Timothy McVeigh's of the world.
- Tom
Have you got a good solution to the problem? Can we stop this propaganda machine?
We tried getting his advertisers to quit. They did, many of them, but he's still on. Can we do that until the conservatives are broke? They have most of the money so it would take a while....
I would expect that a sixth grader making that his oral presentation would be graded poorly for unsupported assertions and an overall poor effort. Yet a "news" channel is allowing this guy to embarrass them every day. Is there an editor to answer to? How does that mess get by? A teaching assistant grading this as a college paper would be writing in red pen "how do you support this argument?".
Sadly, most of the dunderheads in his audience are susceptible to this silly nonsense because the already hate non-conservatives. In other words they WANT to believe it. Just when you thought our political discourse couldn't devolve further-Glen Beck has a show. So, let fox become more of a joke and let the independents laugh at the right as their power leaches away.
I've been having that same problem with clearing my voice for days now.
And it was Dallas PBS that sprung Monty Python on an unsuspecting America.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.
http://www.venganza.org/piratesarecool4.gif
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism
Arrrrrgh!
May you be touched by His noodliy appendage.
You have to remember, Beck took Rush too seriously when the latter told his audiences he would debate anyone with one half of his brain tied behind his back. Beck volunteered for lobotomy and this is what we get. My feeling is that he has permanent nourishment neurosis as a result of becoming infatuated with his mother's nursing, then suddenly withdrawn, perhaps bottle-fed, such that he has separation anxiety. I think Roger should get him some Zanax, then stage a publicity bust like Limbaugh's -- for Oxycontin. Ought to boost the ratings.
"They keep separating him until they find someone you will tolerate"
Happily Glenn,the protector of the one true America won't tolerate anyone to the Left of Nixon.
BTW,does Lonesome sound a tad constipated to anyone else?
That growl in his "comedic" delivery sounds like he's pinching a loaf in his shorts.
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