One of Kent Hovind’s buddies has recorded a long phone call with the guy in jail. It’s exactly what would wind him up: he was asked to critique the Hovind wikipedia page, so it was an excuse to talk about himself for an hour. Here’s the whooooole thing.
About one hour in, he starts trash-talking me, telling his interviewer “You should read the debate I did with PZ Myers last year,” which was a bit of a surprise. He was in jail last year. I haven’t debated him at all. Last year, Hovind challenged me to a debate in a very pompous and silly manner, and condescendingly informed me that he would pay me $150/hour for my time, and I’d just have to book a big auditorium on my campus. I told him I’d have to be paid half the profits. He backed off, blustering and complaining.
It was all moot anyway, since he was in jail, didn’t get out, and is probably going to get more time tacked onto his sentence. But once he does get out, he’s in luck: I’ve set out my debate conditions already, so maybe he can work something out.
Curiously, he says that this debate
has been published in a booklet, titled Whose Mouths Must Be Stopped. First I’ve heard of it. If he’s using my words somehow, maybe he should have sent me a copy. As it is, I’m not putting the exorbitant cost of his booklet ($1.29) in his pocket.
He also says this:
I wouldn’t believe PZ Myers if he told me a duck could quack
Ironic, coming from someone who just claimed to have had a debate with me. I think I’ll double my fee for that.
As it is, all of his griping about everyone who has criticized him — Skip Evans, Eugenie Scott, Barbara Forrest, Dave Thomas, a whole long list — is rendered silly by one simple fact: we’re out here, while he’s in jail for fraud.
It’s remarkable that a few followers insist he has been jailed as an act of government oppression. Given that they don’t understand the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, genetics, and history, I guess we should include brazen tax fraud on that list?
Actually, the list of what they understand would be painfully small. My religion good. End of story. They simply can’t go beyond that presupposition.
I enjoy that the initial question literally said “it would be a good thing, just to have your opinion on it, not too spend too much time on it, of course” and then he went on for an hour about it at a barely comprehensible rate of speech.
I made it about five minutes in before I remembered why PZ and others do us all a great service by actually listening to this drivel so the rest of us don’t have to. “… dating the layers of the earth in the millions of years, which is obviously not true…” “.. everything in the Genesis account of creation is scientifically accurate…”
After he started repeating that he never took any money for personal use from the “ministry”, I just laughed and had to stop. Guess he’s still not doing well with that whole “accepting the court’s decision and showing contrition” thing.
P.S. Is there any way we can use shame to never inflict Hovind’s voice on us again? Any way at all?
“It says I owned twelve properties, but that is NOT TRUE!”
“Yes they were put in my name, but that’s because it had to be in someone’s name”
“But they were never mine, they were THE LORD’S”
“I took a vow of poverty, I didn’t own anything. I gave all my income from private speaking engagements to the Ministry”
“The ministry is what gave me my house, my car, my flights to speaking engagements…”
Wowww, he really doesn’t get the concept of tax fraud, huh?
I also remain amused that he simultaneously holds the positions that:
* Macroevolution is a religion, because it is false and requires belief in the absence of evidence
* The account in Genesis is completely, provably true
…lol what?
…and now Sovereign Citizen quackery, defending his plea of “subornation of false muster”, on the grounds that (according to him) he was in a “military court” (he wasn’t).
I also liked the bit where he justifies the fact that he had many tens of thousands of dollars in his house because part of it was his wife’s personal savings and the other part belonged to the church. Yeah, let’s throw the wife to the dogs again.
I’m going to have to check my wife’s dresser now to see how many thousands of dollars are tucked into her underwear drawer.
sven
Of courser he wasn’t – he was in an admiralty court instead.
I have been following the Kent Hovind trial saga in horrified fascination on my Facebook feed. This Rudy Davis guy has been posting these YouTube clips for months, with an unending stream of delusional, self-aggrandizing nonsense from the “Doctor” at every turn. And Rudy himself is a real peach, with a whole raft of rightwing conspiracy theories and ridiculous nonsense of his own to bring to the table. But even though they’re both convinced that poor Kent is 1000% innocent, they’re not entirely in lockstep. . . . Kent hasn’t yet confessed the Biblical Truth of Geocentrism.
Here’s a link to Rudy’s totally convincing proof that the sun goes around the earth, and not the other way around: http://youtu.be/32T56YC-X1I
His new trial on the mail fraud charges is this coming May 18th. He was found guilty on the contempt charges on Mar 12th and now he’s back to court again. Poor guy doesn’t understand what he’s being charged for and who’s charging him. Looks like he won’t be getting out of prison anytime soon however. I haven’t listened to the conversation with 1776 yet but I will. 1776 is always entertaining and Kent’s biggest supporter.
myleslawrence @9:
I think Hovind actually *does* understand what he’s being charged for and who’s charging him. He’s a con man who thinks he’s slicker than he actually is. Plus, he has a carefully constructed image (to his followers) he has to maintain.
Here is some of the recent attempts people who are trying change on Hovind’s Wikipedia page:
*A different photo of him. (The current one is a mug shot which is not copyrighted)
*Removal of the statement that his views are contradicted by scientific evidence
*Removal of the reference to the Pensacola News Journal reported that Hovind and Paul Hansen were “charged with mail fraud and criminal contempt”
*Adding that Hovind is a pastor and removal of all other statements in the lede paragraph
*Adding that “many supporters of Hovind believe that he is falsify accused and a victim of IRS abuse. There is a growing movement petitioning for action to be taken on his behalf.”
*Removal of calling him a conspiracy theorist.
Yeah, he’s an idiot and everything, but you’d think he would know enough to avoid breaking the law WHILE IN FUCKIN’ PRISON. Creationists never cease to amaze me with their stupidity.
@12: The problem is, he doesn’t believe he has broken any laws, not before he went to prison and not while he’s been in prison. At this point, he’s way past stupidity, we’re talking out and out delusion.
“Whose Mouths Must Be Stopped”. I wonder what point he means to use that phrase for. Either it’s the expected “the evil ones try to shut me up whilst I speak the truth of not having to pay taxes”-kind of thing, or perhaps he actually means that people who disagree with him should have their free speech taken away. Or at least those are the two options I can think of off the top of my head. I’m quite curious what that booklet is about, considering a debate never took place. Is he trying to refute arguments PZ made in the public, on this blog or in debates in the past? Did he just compile responses to arguments he heard or read?
I don’t have a link to hand (I do have a copy of the PDF), but he’s also trying to reactivate his case against RationalWiki. (This is the one where he considers calling him a “tax fraud” is so defamatory as to warrant $2.5 million recompense.) We don’t expect this to go anywhere, though even a trivially defective lawsuit is still stressful and costs actual money to fight off.
(We just finished a successful fundraiser, though more is always welcome! Mr Hovind could be one of our biggest volunteer fundraisers …)
Oh, but Kent Hovind is not in prison. That’s obviously not true. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the claim that he is in prison. Besides, the Bible does not tell that Hovind is in prison. So he can’t be in prison. You only believe he is in prison because of your evolutionist superstitions.
Heh! Heh! I just looked at that wikipedia page (thank you coreyschlueter)
One thing it mentions (in the Dinosaur Adventure Land section) is his claim “that a few small dinosaurs still roam the planet.”
This is obviously ABSOLUTELY TRUE!!!
I know this because I have a feeder for them in my back garden.
For a guy who took a “vow of poverty”, Kent’s got a really big house.
I had a quick glance at his Wiki page, and apparently he holds four degrees in bullshit subjects (Christian education and Christian ministry), all from “unaccredited institutions”.
So in reality, he holds no degrees. Even his education is delusional.
Does it really? In the US, from what I’ve read truth is an absolute defense [sic] against libel & slander – you’d just need to stand there, represent yourself, and mention the mere fact that Hovind was convicted of tax fraud.
Kent’s $250,000 challenge:
[Sorry to rehash this nonsense]
1. It is impossible to PROVE this assertion with verifiable evidence that matter just came into existence en masse (as opposed to individual particles able to pop into existence). It is insufficient that this is totally consistent with all the rest of known physics. But that is not the nonsensical condition of the challenge I am trying to “discuss” here.
2. yada yada yada, … irrelevant.
3. “matter created life” ??? Is not life, itself, matter? I suppose that it is too complicated an explanation to explain that “life” is a chemical process that some chemicals (of matter) undergo. That “life” is not a material that can be ex nihilo created. So I’m sure that explanation: too verbose and complicated, would be instantly disqualified as meeting that requirement of the challenge.
4. reproduction needs to be “learned” by microorganisms and all lifeforms? Yes, raising a child needs to be learned, but that is very different than simple reproduction. To meet this requirement…how is it even conceivable to meet this challenge? Must one show that “early lifeforms” _learned_ how to reproduce after being able to just popup randomly, wherever? Just another absurd requirement of this challenge.
It is clear (to me) that the requirements are chosen, and worded, so as to be unfulfillable. As in, lots of ‘wiggle’ room, for Hovind to deny anyone who tries to meet this challenge.
blah, blahk, blagh. I’m sorry, that wikipage, re Hovind, was too amusing to not point out what caused me to laugh the most. This challenge has been debunked so often, I’m just being redundant here. I’ll be quiet now, carry on everyone ;-)
@David Marjanović
That requires showing up in the court where the suit was filed …which isn’t necessarily anywhere near where you live. How much time will you take off to get around a country as large as the US? How much time will you take off to make sure you know the forms required for your written submissions to the court?
I’m not saying it’s always super-burdensome, but neither is it automatically easy.
It does suggest an interesting science fair project: you could chuck an egg at Hovind and test whether a quack can duck. Maybe for the next Creation Science Fair?
Bush ][ managed to duck, so there is some evidence some can avoid thrown shoes. An egg is just a spherical shoe, so it’s all the same.
@Deacon Duncan #23:
Where shall I have your Internet delivered?
Well, more like not withholding payroll taxes for employees, and “smurfing” — splitting large bank transactions in ways that would normally evade the bank’s duty to report large transactions, and then recently a jury found him guilty of contempt of a court order requiring him to surrender property to pay fines, penalties and unpaid taxes. One could argue the point that by pocketing money that was owed to the Government and by structuring transactions in an attempt to evade notice, he was defrauding the Government, but I don’t think he was tried for an actual crime of fraud until recently.
This is part of denialism — Hovind denies the both the US tax laws that require him to do things (it’s why he hasn’t paid his own personal taxes for something like 10 years, which was not the subject of a criminal prosecution) and 3 gospel narratives that have Jesus commanding to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” It’s hypocritical denialism because the smurfing only comes about by being aware one is in the wrong and if caught will be called on to answer.
Ultimately, it stems from the root of much denialism: “You (or your facts) are not the boss of me.”
FYI, if you look at the page for Whose Mouths Must Be Stopped, there’s a small “preview” button. There, you can find out that Hovind is apparently publishing the booklet about an email exchange he had with PZ. Apparently it constituted a “debate”.