Dang, but I seem to be too late. A Seattle newsweekly describes a generous program from Focus on the Family—you could get on to their website store, order up to $100 worth of their enlightening merchandise, and then they only asked for a donation! Pay $0, get it all for free!
Unfortunately, they seem to have caught on. Now you only get a message that the resource center is closed. Keep an eye on it in case it re-opens.
(via Riba Rambles)
It’s backup, and jeez…it worked. At least, we’ll see if it works if the books arrive in about two weeks. Look at it as a way to get your hands on Wells’ Icons of Evolution or some of Phillip Johnson’s books while paying what they’re worth.
“Please call (800) A-FAMILY (232-6459) if you’d like to place a order by telephone.”
Well, it would help if I could see what I was ordering.
I’m really looking for something like this.
One of my coworkers is looking for a new job. Oh, did I mention he is a born-again. So last week he tells me he found a job he is going to apply for and wants me to check out the job description on their web site. Turns out the job is with Focus on the Family. I felt dirtier going to that web site than the filthiest porn site. Although I would love to cause them financial hardship, I think my computer will burst into flames if I hit that site again.
Nope, it’s working again. Go get your literature…and save your soul halleluia!
Yep, it worked for me. Holy crap, that’s awesome. I can’t wait to learn about Helping People Step Out of Homosexuality. And a complementary DVD of Narnia! My Christmas shopping is DONE.
Christmas shopping? What a GREAT idea! I was just there but I’ll be shopping again soon. :)
My piano teacher, back in the 70s, had a hobby of decoupaging old thrift store trash cans with junk mail… “trash” cans (hardee har), get it? Oh, come on, it was cute. I may resurrect (hardee har) the technique….
Other than having to look at the site, that was rather painless. Now I won’t have to add Narnia to my Netflix list.
Which would be a fair deal, if they threw in a can of gas and a pack of matches with every, uh, purchase.
Yep. You atheists sure are more moral and upstanding than us Christians. Stuff like this proves it beyond any doubt. Remember, “Smearing (or ripping off) Christians is a higher calling than the truth (or scruples).”
I ordered A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. But it will be sent to 100 Your Face Street in Yourface, New York. I wonder where it will end up.
Jason, if you give us your address, we’ll send you a lot of free stuff.
Wow, that felt great. But not as good as it’s going to feel when the payment for those 3 Narnia DVDs hits my Paypal account.
Hey, PZ… What was it you were saying the other day about Christians being scam artists/con artists/robbers/swindlers?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/08/so_this_is_news.php
Well, I guess you’re only targeting Christians, so that makes it okay for you to have a double-standard.
Oh, I’ve got it. “James Dobson ripped off people first, so we’re just returning the favor. We’re like a gang of Robin Hoods.” Am I close? Probably. You clowns are nothing if not predictable.
Jason, Jason, Jason… *tsk tsk* What they’re doing is ordering this literature for the price it’s actually worth; Focus on the Family may not be too happy about it, but they don’t have a leg to stand on. Charging people for this stuff IS ripping them off–especially given the supposed “benevolent” (to the wingnut “mind”) purposes for which it’s to be used.
By the way, I believe you have a backlog of about 15-20 questions of mine, from previous posts, that you never answered. While I don’t expect you to suddenly stop the weasel routine, I feel inclined to remind you and the audience of this.
As an amusing anecdote, I was at the American River College bookstore today, picking up my textbooks for the next semester, and I was shocked, and felt rather betrayed, when I discovered that they not only carried “Godless”–for extracurricular reading, thank Vagina, not a textbook–but had put it with the political books, rather than with the other fantasy fiction. However, I was heartened by the fact that when, while paying for my textbooks, I expressed my dismay at an educational institution selling that shit to students (not the words I used..), several of the sales clerks agreed that they had no idea why they carried it; one of them mentioned the name of what I presumed was one of the managers and said something which I don’t remember word-for-word but which suggested that he had a rather bitter and distant relationship with empirical reality. Perhaps the epidemic of Stupid isn’t as severe as I had feared… ^.^
Obviously, Focus in the Family is running this as an evangelical tool — they’re sending these things out to try and persuade people. I am actually going to read the books I ordered. I’ll probably savage them afterwards, but hey, that’s the way it works.
One trade-off, I’m sure, and one that I should have warned everyone about: this probably puts you on Dobson’s mailing list.
Jason,
They make this available for free because they are stupid. They are stupid enough to think that they can pick and choose that their books will only be going to save souls, rather than to atheists who laugh at their stupidity. Stupid people face consequences in reality.
We are using their legitimate website to make legitimate transactions. Hell, I just got $500 worth of stuff sent to me. I didn’t “steal” a damn thing, buddy, they gave it to me.
Sorry.
Oh, okay. So you’d like me to fill up PZ’s comments with answers to your questions in order to satisfy your ego. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve answered plenty of questions/comments directed at me here already and I really don’t care to go search through past comments looking for your’s. Feel free to find them yourself and send them to my email address. That still doesn’t give you a 100% guarantee of any response from me, but it’d be better than the 0% chance if you didn’t email them.
I was just a little bit creeped out by the list of “What’s Popular”:
No Substitute for Daddy’s Love
Five Things I Know About People
She Calls Me Daddy
Back to School Kit (Hers)
Too Small to Ignore
Really? That wasn’t my first thought. My immediate reaction when I saw what they were doing is that it is a scheme to avoid paying any tax.
this probably puts you on Dobson’s mailing list.
I thought about that.
hard.
and came to the conclusion, knowing what i do about how internet databases are utilized, that it simply wasn’t worth it. I got all the way to the checkout, and cleared the page and the cookie before I entered any personal info.
Your mileage may vary, but I myself would always like to be able to say I never signed on to Dobson’s crusade in any way, shape, or form, even as an intentional lark.
never know when that shit will come back to haunt you.
or, maybe I’m just bein’ a pussy.
*shrug*
Ah, so using a legitimate website to make a legitimate transaction with the express and sole purpose of hurting a company financially is “legitimate?” Did I get that right?
I’m just wondering… is there some kind of legal reason that they persist in calling it a “donation?” Something about taxes or whatever?
boy, this sure got ol Jason riled up.
I can picture the steam coming out of his ears.
Hisssssssss.
Now we know how to goad him into a thread at any time:
just remind him of DobsonClaus (TM).
I see nothing wrong on taking advantage of a free offer from an outfit that uses the products they sell to advance a hidden political agenda. I was on AIG’s mailing list for years and never bought anything. It was a good way, as another said, to keep tabs on them, and from time to time I learned things.
Scott
They’re giving it away. The fact that they put it back up that way shows that they intended to do it that way.
They call it a donation, for pete’s sake. If they wanted you to HAVE to pay it, they would call it a “price”, like everybody else.
I don’t see the moral transgression in taking something that someone is knowingly giving away for free. Can you explain it to me, Jason? Or maybe Robert would like to pop in here for a chance to explain how he’s so much more moral then me, like he does in his ridiculous harassing emails to my wife.
Well, that sort of depends on what you think their intentions are.
1) If their intentions are that it is, as they claim, merely a “suggested donation” and it’s ok to “donate” whatever you feel like because, you know, they’re just trying to spread the message, then there’s no problem, is there? In fact, PZ is probably precisely the sort of person they’d want to reach (he did say he’d actually read the stuff, after all. I mean, no sense preaching to the converted).
2) If, on the other hand, you’re right, and they don’t mean it to be a “suggested donation” at all, but it’s just a nudge and a wink to circumvent tax law, maybe we should tell the IRS. By the way, when you said “company”, was that just a slip?
So which is it, Jason?
So I will ask [directly] again: does this make it okay to use this feature as a means of hurting the company financially (as the people here ordering are doing)?
So are you weaseling or just missing the point? See my previous post for the question you should be asking (and answering) yourself.
Way I see it, I OWE the bastard for what happened after my parents read Dare to Discipline.
On the contrary, Jason, it’s you that is missing the point.
Your question is predicated on assuming that they’re running a tax evasion scheme, rather than actually wanting to give stuff away. Is that what you’re saying?
Obviously. Does that give you all a right to use it to hurt them financially? That’s the question everyone here is avoiding desperately. Why don’t you want to answer that question?
My question assumes nothing of the sort. However, your questions and arguments assume that the fact that they take donations for items gives you carte blanche to hurt them financially.
I’m not even going to justify that stupid question with an answer.
Even for free, I wouldn’t have time for that crap.
Here I am trying to decide if I should spend the little time I have in reading Dawkins, Feynman or a book about symmetry in particle physics.
Jason, jason…
Does it hurt you when you give things away, completely unsolicited to do so which are in no way need-based items? Um, no.
:) I have gotten $800 for myself, so far, $300 for my parents, and $200 for the in-laws, and $300 for the older sister.
They hurt themselves by choosing to give materials away for free, which, I am sure Millimeter Wave is correct in pointing out they just use to refund themselves via some tax “reach around”. Stupid Christians, Jesus is dead!
Hey, console yourself Jason, they probably get reimbursed by some faith-based initiative!
“Look at it as a way to get your hands on Wells’ Icons of Evolution or some of Phillip Johnson’s books while paying what they’re worth.”
Depends. I hear that print ink smears. Does anyone know how to cook the books (heh! :-) to get rid of it? I don’t want to be smeared by my toilet paper, it’s supposed to work the other way you know.
Hmmm… Sounds like fun, but somehow I think that this will work out in FOF’s favor.
Not only will they use this as a huge tax shelter, but they will be able to document a huge spike in the volume of their propaganda being consumed. This then will be used to legitimize their fringe views as common and mainstream.
Um… No, it doesn’t hurt me for me to give things away for free. It DOES hurt me for someone else to exploit my charity to hurt me financially, benefit themselves financially or both.
Enjoy them while you can. Make sure you tell them all exactly – and I mean EXACTLY – how you got the items. “Yeah, Mom. Focus on the Family has this thing where you can make a suggested donation for the items and I put ZERO because I felt like abusing their charitable practices. And it really makes me feel good to hurt them financially. Enjoy!”
Wow! Talk about contradictions! First you say that giving things away doesn’t hurt, but then you turn around and say it does hurt. Which is it?
Oh, so by doing this, you’re happily helping them accomplish this (in your mind). And this sits well with you? You and your kind complain to no end about churches and Christian organizations like FotF being tax-free and you are extremely opposed to faith-based initiatives. Yet here you are encouraging both (in your mind)! Well, I guess if you’re getting something free out of it, you don’t need to stick by your convictions, right? “Tax-free Christian churches and organizations are bad (unless they benefit me). Faith-based initiatives are bad (unless they benefit me).”
Bah! Don’t think about that one bit. You’re getting free stuff!!! That trumps any reservations you have about it working in their favor. (Just ask everyone here who’s ordered hundreds – even thousands – of dollars worth of items and is feverishly defending it.)
“Bah, humbug!”
good one Jason, fits right in with the theme.
You get to play scrooge and try to ruin our xmas bonus.
So Jason, wouldn’t the moral equivalent of legitimately accepting this free material for the sole purpose of taking money from this church be legitimately NOT buying goods from a company (thus cutting profits) for the sole purpose of keeping their profits down?
Actually, I have to admit that some of you are probably right that this will end up benefitting Dobson and FotF in the long run. How wonderfully ironic! Consider my objections null and void (I’ll even retract my post on my blog). Go right ahead and order all you want.
Here I am trying to decide if I should spend the little time I have in reading Dawkins, Feynman or a book about symmetry in particle physics.
go Feyman first, then Dawkins, then particle physics.
come to think of it, it’s about time i did that same cycle again myself.
get something new out of reading Dawkins every time.
Jason:
easy to goad, easy to shut up.
what more could you ask for from a troll?
don’t ever ban him.
$98 of bigotry in print headed my way.
Anybody familiar with the costs of assorted media care to inform us which of these products are most expensive to produce or purchase wholesale?
May as well get the biggest bang for their buck.
I agree that this is a stunt, likely havoing to do with keeping their non-profit status intact.
they may have a financial review coming up, and the company needed to show a bit of loss to balance profits in order to maintain their defacto “non-profit” status.
what faster way to generate losses than the giveaway of items with overinflated prices to begin with?
sounds quick and dirty, but effective. fits right in with Dobson’s political ministry.
May as well get the biggest bang for their buck.
go with hardcover books and VHS tapes.
Jason:
As polychrome mentioned, my biggest problem with this is that it increases their number in circulation, so they can claim crap like “Now in its fifth printing!” and such.
Although I imagine paperbacks are easier to recycle…. Which is the plan :)
It’s funny how turnabout works, isn’t it. When Dobson goes after companies and organizations that dare to recognize the human legitimacy of GLBT people, it’s just a “campaing for morality” to people like Jason. Meanwhile, when a little “turnabout” happens – such as exploiting an obvious weakness in Dobson’s website, the perpetrators are suddenly “trying to hurt someone”. Just what do they think Dobson’s little campaigns are trying to do?
To paraphrase a bit of scripture, it would seem that Dobson is reaping precisely what he has sown. He sows viciousness against people, and he is reaping the rewards of it…
Jason couldn’t get the links to work for him, that’s all it was.
I don’t want to be smeared by my toilet paper, it’s supposed to work the other way you know.
Got a paint job coming up? How about using the pages to catch discarded toenail clippings? I’m lining the cat box. Thousands of uses.
Jason,
If they are willing to offer something for free, there is no moral obligation not to take it. I have no problem with taking advantage of loss leaders in retail stores, so I don’t see why I should have any problems with this group. That this group is itself a distributer of lies is gravy. In the end they are gambling that we will convert. They will lose the bet.
PZ,
I certainly have no objection to being on their mailing list. It means even less money for them. They might even sell our names to other organizations, but overall it would be even more such organizations losing money.
Everyone,
You might want to make a print-out and/or screen shot of how much you owe. One never knows what they might try.
Chronicles of Narnia (radio play edition) is heading my way! W00T! It’s not high literature, but my kids will enjoy it. And you know, I don’t feel the least bit guilty. Putting aside his beliefs, Dobson’s parenting advice is abusive crap, so even if I were a True Christian ™, I’d be more than happy to pay $0 to get them and, if possible, do a little financial harm in the process. Not that, if the comments here are correct, it will actually do so, but hey, free lunch (-time entertainment).
Oh, and my cart’s total was $127, but it never said I couldn’t go above that… and the confirmation email doesn’t say anything about that either.
Gregory is right, it’s the moral equivalent of a boycott.
For the love of Vagina. Am I the only one getting a “98 pound weakling imitating the “cool” playground bullies in an environment where it won’t get him a very high dental bill, as opposed to actually trying to be a better person” vibe from Jason?
Anyway, Jasonb, I’m not going to waste a bunch of my and my employer’s time hunting down the questions you’ve sidestepped. I’m simply going to ensure that no one forgets that you did.
And I’d consider ordering some of this stuff, but I don’t want Focus on the Family or any similar group to have my address. I have a wife and kid, and I don’t want to come home to find the apartment broken into and them dead or missing.
Jason,
If you actually think this is financially hurting Focus on the Family you should check out their revenues. Just go to http://atgdata.fdncenter.org/990search/search.php and do a search for FOF. Their 2004 assets were over $107 million and, according to the June 2006 edition of Church and State magazine (a FREE issue that showed up in my mailbox today from Americans United for Separation of Church and State) FOF assets for 2005 were over $137 million. So handing out (and they are willing to hand it out) a few hundred dollars in merchandise is just a drop in the collection plate for them. For example, if 2000 people ordered $500 worth of material each from FOF with no donation that would cost FOF $1M, or a whopping 0.73% of their 2005 revenue.
The only people being financially hurt here are the people who actually give them money for all that bilge.
hhmm…it is late…Jason, are you gone for the evening? I was looking for you on another post, and you decided not to show… :(
I’ve been gone for three months and, yet, when I saw this topic I thought: “I’ll bet Jason is down there hyperventilating in the comments”.
But hell, man, FoF is a repressive behemoth that screwed over the no-nonsense moderate secular conservative atmosphere of my hometown. Now I get to put up with flaky evangelical wingnuts and their crappy anarchist bent on economics and development. This used to be a nice place to live. They *owe* me free stuff, and more than just a triple digit figure.
Heh, I got a little excited there. There’s a link in their shop that said “Spice Up Your Marriage”.
That didn’t mean what I hoped it would. To their credit, there is 1 book under that section that at least claims to teach sexual techniques. Upon closer inspection, it does not:
Just… wow.
Meh. I thought about getting stuff to sell on ebay as the original writer of the article suggested. I sure could use the money.
But I did a “Focus on the Family” search on ebay and none of the items had any bids on them. I guess no one wants this crap and that’s why they’re giving it away.
Ah, poor Jason. Has no clue how humorous we find this. ;^)
Hey, propoganda is *supposed* to be free. Otherwise, it’s too expensive to catapult it….
all I have to say is:
Total for all resources: $ 1,360.00
now lets just see if they send it….
Jason,
I’m over $150,000 and I guess I’m done…too tired to go on.
The next time you think about giving your money to a place like FOF, why don’t you do the moral thing and follow my lead?
BTW, I’m going to sell as much of this sh*t as possible and donate the profits to my favorite educational nonprofit, the Center for Inquiry.
You know the difference between a religious nonprofit and an educational one? (Besides the obvious: that the former is bereft of real benefit to anyone while the latter is not) The CFI and other educational nonprofits must fill out a 990 documenting every single expense and penny of income. Religious nonprofits not only steal out tax dollars by using tax-paid-for resources, but often find other loopholes (like FOF) to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
Isn’t that goddish of them? luuuuuvly!
On Round 1, I pretty much cleared out the “Spice Up Your Marriage” section. Will report back on results. Or maybe I’ll ask my wife to.
Next up: “The Evolution Set: Two outstanding new videos present irrefutable scientific evidence that effectively demolishes Charles Darwin’s unproven ideas about evolution.” Can’t wait!
“You don’t want to go there, Justin.”
Yes! Priceless. The implication that you’ve got the ability to back up your threats – hilarious.
Try not to forget that I know, quite intimately, how gutless and impotent you truly are.
“So I will ask [directly] again: does this make it okay to use this feature as a means of hurting the company financially (as the people here ordering are doing)?”
What’s the hurt? Nobody’s forcing FoF to spend their money like this. If they want it to stop they can take the page down.
You’re going to have to do a much better job of establishing harm than simply asserting it, Jason. I doubt that you can, of course.
Well, Jason, to keep it fair all around, why don’t you do the following:
1. Find a website run by an organization whose goals you disagree with, and which is funding massive giveaways of expensively produced promotional material.
2. Request lots and lots of their stuff without donating any money to them.
3. Think about where all that money is coming from in the first place. (Hell, I’d love to see progressives and skeptics have that much money!)
I’m surprised nobody has made a Mastercard/priceless joke yet.
Jason, why do you always refuse to answer the question of whether you believe in the literal truth of the New and Old Testament? What exactly are you afraid of?
It’s not like answering ‘yes’ would make us think any LESS of you, that’s simply not possible.
well i only managed to get $127. i just didn’t plain old want any of that other shit. Can’t wait to add the phillip johnson and icons books to my pseudo-science collection. sure wish ICR or AIG would be pulling one of these kinda jobs. I’d love to hit their pocketbooks too, whilst impressing colleagues with the number of shelves of deceit and chicanery that i have amassed. thanks for the heads up PZ!
Oh, okay. So you’d like me to fill up PZ’s comments with answers to your questions in order to satisfy your ego
Ho ho ho. Suddenly Jinx “PZ Myers is the Antichrist” McHue is deeply concerned about making sure he doesn’t fill up PZ’s blog with off topic comments. Mighty large of ya, Jinx.
Do not mistake my compassion for impotency.
Rapists are not capable of compassion.
You don’t want to go there, Justin.
A hint: the tough guy routine doesn’t usually work on an anonymous internet forum.
You’re a monster, Robert, which I know all too well, and it’s exactly what everybody senses about you. It comes through in your writing.
Please, I beg you. Send me more of those delightful threatening emails for me to pass along to the police and your ISP. Certainly you’re not capable of any threat that I would take seriously. You’re far too spineless.
Jason, it is impossible for me to smear xtians because they are actually worse than any insult I could imagine. Truth surpasses fiction.
As to ripping off xtians, have xtians been ripping off people for 2000 years?
Was it Mencken or Barum who said to the effect, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”. Mostly good xtians, aren’t they.
Calling a xtian a fool is an insult to fools.
I know him, stupid ass.
Um, yes, and evidently not in a good way.
Didn’t I just say, Robert, that there was no threat you could possibly deliver that I would take seriously? I know all too well what kind of victim you prefer.
What gave it away?
This line:
“like he does in his ridiculous harassing emails to my wife.”
Chet, do you feel comnfortable posting excerpts of some of these emails in question?
>>>A hint: the tough guy routine doesn’t usually work on an anonymous internet forum.
RO:
I know him, stupid ass.
indeed, and he seems to know you quite well too:
Try not to forget that I know, quite intimately, how gutless and impotent you truly are.
how is it that he knows you so well, Robert?
do tell us oh master of the inept one-liner.
Jason yammered:
Since Jason has got us on the subject of “stealing” (however inapplicable), I’ll steal a line from Black Adder. Dude, you’re as thick as the big print version of the complete works of Charles Dickens!
FotF chose not to sell this stuff for whatever its suggested retail prices are. What they chose to do was set up their website to where you could get the material for a “donation.” Then they put no provision in place to prevent people from simply typing in “0” to the donation blank. So they bear full responsibility for any financial loss they may incur. What we can glean from the way they chose to set up their website is that they are either:
1. Totally stupid.
2. Not in a position where giving the items away for free would hurt them financially, and are simply looking for a quick way to multiply the size of their mailing lists.
3. Looking for a tax dodge, or some other thing.
EIther way, none of us can read their minds, so we cannot be reponsible if they are losing money on the offer due to reason one. If this were really happening to them, they could very easily revise their website to require, say, a $10 or $20 minimum donation. But it’s their responsibility. Any judge will tell you so. You can’t very well give something away for free, and then castigate people for ripping you off because they took what you were giving away for free. I mean, frickin’ DUH, dude!
You’re just so desperate so find a way to slag people who don’t believe in your invisible friend, you can’t even admit to FotF’s responsibility for their own decisions! Just making yourself look foolish. Again. And again. And….
Is it just me, or does the present tone of this thread strike anyone else as creepy?
It’s not just you. Incidentally, when two strangers show up in one of the atheist forums or chatrooms I frequent, and start acting like an obnoxious, dangerous tag team, they usually are doing so either to goad the regulars into saying things not to their credit, or just want to generate log files to be able to say “look at the awful things those atheists say.” Either way it’s a dirty psyops tactic not terribly unlike other dirty psyops tactics the religious pull.
No, as they’re related to deeply personal matters, and it would constitute a betrayal of confidence.
This page here disgusts me. Thanks to all you people doing such a stupid thing and then talking about it just brought my attention to it! I was unaware this stuff was happening, I just happened to come across it and now have ordered material and donated to Focus on the Family. I’ve sent all my friends and family to do so also. So THERE! You guys really are scum. Stupid lefties.
‘Scum’? Gee, why do you sound so angry?
Sounds like the rest of us will have to order just that much more free stuff from Dobson and throw it away just to make up for you and your friends! :-)
Well, Chet, if this is an inkling of what’s going on in your personal life, I hope (for the sake of all involved) that it’s not as deep and serious as it seems, because that would really suck.
I wish you peace.
Scott
Still works, by the way :)
Reminds me of an English comp klass I onct took. At the end of the semster, the perfesser told us to attach a note to the final telling him what grade we wanted. My gentleman’s C became an A.
It’s been over two weeks since Aug. 18. Did the books ever arrive?
Why, no, they haven’t. I’ll give him the traditional “4-6 weeks,” though, before I accuse him of welching on the deal.