Glenn Beck made a movie?

I hadn’t heard anything about it. Apparently, almost nobody else had, either.

In New York, Beck sold 17 tickets. In Boston, another 17. And in Washington, D.C., the hotbed of political activism, his tearful film drew only 30, Raw Story has found.

Glenn Beck’s new movie The Christmas Sweater – A Return To Redemption — released for a viewing Thursday night in hundreds of theaters across the country. While it performed better in the south and in rural, more conservative areas, his ability to draw viewers in major US markets was a bust.

“The theater’s almost empty,” a representative at Regal Cinemas in Manhattan told Raw Story moments before it began.

The flick features the firebrand Fox News host sharing with willing souls his most profound childhood memories, along with his philosophies on life, love and happiness.

“It is the story of faith, tragedy, redemption and hope,” Beck says in the trailer. (Reporter’s caution: he cries in it.)

Yeesh. It sounds even worse than Expelled. The trailer (I don’t recommend it) evoked feelings of revulsion and disgust, which isn’t usually what you want to do to fill the seats.

Although, you never know…maybe he was trying to tap into the “two girls one cup” demographic.

How much porn do you watch?

A study that tried to analyze how pornography affected men’s views ran into an unfortunate problem: no control group. It seems there does not exist a population of males that doesn’t see some porn regularly. Still, they went ahead and at least got some shaky numbers on porn viewing habits.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

I found this rather disturbing — personally, I’m way, way down below the average. Was there something wrong with me? But then I had to wonder how they defined “pornography”. I occasionally watch R rated movies — does that count? I personally feel that what constitutes pornography is often something I find offensive or distasteful, so I don’t watch it…but if it is inoffensive or tasteful, it can’t be porn.

If I search for movies of squid mating, am I looking for porn? It matches my image of sexuality, after all. And why are they only looking at men? Don’t women ever look at what some might define as pornography?

Now I’m very confused. I don’t think there is a normal level, so papers that try to measure one seem to miss the mark.

Take your doctor’s advice

An Irish doctor has had to go public with his recommendation: he’s telling Catholic fanatics that they shouldn’t stared directly at the sun to generate optical artifacts.

We clearly need a set of PSAs targeted specifically at religious audiences. Don’t jump off of tall building because you can’t fly, don’t eat poop because it tastes yucky and is full of bacteria, don’t poke yourself in the eye with a fork when you eat, that sort of thing. They clearly need help.

Reality is a liberal conspiracy

By way of the endless thread, I have discovered this marvelous quote from Andy Schlafly.

There’s a broader point here. Why the big push for black holes by liberals, and big protests against any objection to them? If it turned out empirically that promoting black holes tends to cause people to read the Bible less, would you still push this so much?

Forget that math and physics stuff; the universe is actually a giant propaganda piece for liberalism, and the only reason scientists huff and puff about what’s actually out there is to get you to stop reading your Bibles.

Great bathroom reading?

I have mixed feelings about this: a first-edition copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species has been discovered, which is, of course, great — I do wish I had the pocket change to drop £60,000 to buy it for myself.

The weird part is that it was found in the guest bathroom of an old house in Oxford. Apparently, someone thought the Origin was perfect light, occasional reading for visitors attending to certain private physiological functions, which is nice, if a little trivializing. It’s a bit odd, though, that they put the book there and no one seems to have bothered to notice it for 150 years. I am really curious to know what other books were on that toilet shelf — I’m imagining guests ducking into the bathroom for a few minutes of managing the necessaries, scanning the shelf for a little light reading to pass the time, and skipping over the rare and valuable antique Darwin volume to read…what? A couple of scrolls of the lost plays of Aeschylus, the handwritten manuscript copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and a copy of the Arzhang, the mysterious holy book of the Manicheans? Or was it a yellowed copy of the Daily Mall, a couple of dog-eared editions of the Readers’ Digest, and last week’s TV Guide? This must have been a very curious and neglected bookshelf!

Oooh, I think I may be feeling a bit poorly, dear…

John Wesley, the Methodist theologian, also advocated ‘natural’ cures for illness, so he was kind of a quack. However, this account of Wesley’s recommendations for treating the sick has one prescription I really like. No, not the one about holding a warm puppy against your tummy for stomach-ache (although that one is pretty good)…it’s a couple of paragraphs below that one.

I’ll let you figure it out.

NO! It’s not drinking beer for tuberculosis, either!