In the ongoing Hovind trial, no new revelations except for more details about how rich the creationist con artist and tax evader is. He makes $50,000/year in speaking fees, and with his wife, sells $1.8 million/year in “Christian merchandise” (tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?).

They still deny that they earn salaries, and claim that they have no income at all.

A reader in Canada just let me know that CBC Radio 1 will broadcast a program on creationist museum tours sometime this morning (between 9:30 and 10…the timezone is unclear). I won’t be able to listen because I’m going to be lecturing the freshmen on the perfidies of creationism, so if anyone catches it, let us know how it goes.

After a week long hiatus, the Hovind trial continues in Florida. This week, we learn about the virtues of Christian charity.

Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. But he believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren’t subject to taxation.

Schneider testified this morning that Jo Hovind requested financial help for her bills from Baptist Health Care, claiming that she had no income.

Schneider also said the Hovinds wrote checks to their children from their Christian Science Evangelism account. They also withdrew money from that account for cashier’s checks.

On one day, a $9,000 check was withdrawn for their son, Eric. That same day, another $9,000 check was withdrawn for Eric’s wife, Tanya.

So they’re raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, they just bunny-hop down to the bank and withdraw sub-$10,000 chunks of cash at will, and they have to beg Baptist Health Care for financial assistance? There must be a few poor Baptists somewhere who are struggling to meet their medical bills who are outraged about that.

---

Meanwhile, we can’t forget that other infamous creationist, Ken Ham. He isn’t in financial trouble (far from it; I suspect he’s doing research on squeezing camels through needle eyes right now), but he’s facing another, somewhat less critical problem to his fleecing-the-rubes operation: Lucy is coming to town.

Associated Press news reports announcing Lucy’s visit state as fact that the fossilized remains are between three and four million years old and that “debate” still rages about how close an ancestor to man Lucy would be. But Ken Ham, president of the biblical creationist group Answers in Genesis, says those reports are only the beginning of Lucy’s anti-creationism tour.

“When I see that they’re bringing the most famous of the supposed ‘human ancestor’ fossils to America, and they’re going to feature it across America, I can see this is a big push for evolution,” Ham observes.

Oh, no! How dare those wicked evilutionists confont Americans with <oooh!> EVIDENCE <gasp>!! I can see how he’d be unhappy that our museums would be confronting creationist lies with the actual data—showing the evidence is making a “big push for evolution”.

The NY Times is reporting that Ohio scientists are nearly unanimous in mobilizing for the school board election there—and they aren’t on the side of creationists like Deborah Owens Fink. It’s interesting that we’re seeing such activism from scientists; the response from the creationists is also enlightening.

But Dr. Owens Fink, a professor of marketing at the University of Akron, said the curriculum standards she supported did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism. Rather, she said, they urge students to subject evolution to critical analysis, something she said scientists should endorse. She said the idea that there was a scientific consensus on evolution was “laughable.”

Note the next bit; the reporter, Cornelia Dean, is one of the better science people at the Times, and this kind of unambiguous statement about the status of evolutionary theory is exactly what the media ought to be saying more often.

Although researchers may argue about its details, the theory of evolution is the foundation for modern biology, and there is no credible scientific challenge to it as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth. In recent years, with creationist challenges to the teaching of evolution erupting in school districts around the country, groups like the National Academy of Sciences, perhaps the nation’s pre-eminent scientific organization, have repeatedly made this point.

But the academy’s opinion does not matter to Dr. Owens Fink, who said the letter was probably right to say she had dismissed it as “a group of so-called scientists.”

Owens Fink is so wrong on every count that you’d think she ought to be mortified at having her ignorance so boldly displayed in the pages of a major newspaper; I suspect her arrogance is great enough that she’ll be oblivious. There certainly is a consensus in the scientific community favoring evolution. You could argue that a consensus is not a guarantor of truth, but Owens Fink is simply closing her eyes and denying what the practitioners of science, including a majority of the scientists in her own state, are saying.

As for calling the NAS “a group of so-called scientists.”…how clueless can she be? The NAS is the assembly of the elite of American science; admission is selective and only the most prestigious, high-powered big-wigs of the scientific establishment get in. It may be a bit stodgy and conservative, but one thing it is not is a bunch of fake scientists from the fringe—it’s kind of the anti-Discovery Institute. Dismissing it is an amazingly foolish thing for a professor of marketing to do.

Look who’s coming to campaign for Michele Bachmann: the home school kids of Patrick Henry College and Generation Joshua.

Abram Olmstead- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Meredith Schultz- Student, Patrick Henry College
Adrienne Cumbus- Upperclassman, Patrick Henry College
Ioanna Lily Cornett- Student, Patrick Henry College
Nathan Martin- Student, Patrick Henry College

We’ve also got a team of young evangelicals on their way to help out Mark Kennedy. Doesn’t it just make your heart do a little happy pit-a-pat dance?

There is a Kansas connection here: one of their leaders is Ned Ryun, son of the odious Kansas politician. I notice that one of the “resources” the site touts is Answers in Genesis—basically, we’ve got a gang of pathetic creationist conservatives being exported by Kansans to the state of Minnesota to work to make our state as screwed up as theirs. Thanks, Kansas!

Remember those silly Chuck Norris Facts? Ever wonder what Chuck Norris thinks of them (well, actually, I didn’t…so don’t feel bad if you didn’t care)? It’s sad to see that we had to find out, since all we learn is that Norris is as dumb as a brick.

Chuck Norris actually responds to the jokes—in an article on World Nut Daily, of all places. Here’s one example.

Alleged Chuck Norris Fact: “There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.”
It’s funny. It’s cute. But here’s what I really think about the theory of evolution: It’s not real. It is not the way we got here. In fact, the life you see on this planet is really just a list of creatures God has allowed to live.
We are not creations of random chance. We are not accidents. There is a God, a Creator, who made you and me. We were made in His image, which separates us from all other creatures.

By the way, without him, I don’t have any power. But with Him, the Bible tells me, I really can do all things – and so can you.

Well. I guess that’ll teach me…I learned otherwise by reading the work of scholars and scientists, when I should have been paying more attention to men whose reputation is built on their ability to kick people in the face. Since Chuck Norris disagrees with all those “facts” that consist of hyperbolic exaggerations of his machismo, I think we need to start accumulating a new list of more accurate Chuck Norris Facts. Here, I’ll start.

• Chuck Norris’s skull is so dense, the tidal effects from his cranium kill you before his head-butt hits you.

• Chuck Norris sneers at neurologists—it takes a team of geologists to appreciate the pace of his thoughts.

• When Chuck Norris furrows his brow, he’s not thinking—he’s knuckling his third fist.

Does anyone else find it ironic that a spokesman for a religion of love is a muscleman who beats people up in movies? What next…will Rambo speak out for Jesus?

The latest in the Hovind trial: a local lawyer recounts his conversations with Kent.

Gibbs said Hovind tried to persuade him he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with “a great deal of bravado” how he had “beat the tax system.”Gibbs said Hovind also told him he preferred to deal in cash and that when you are “dealing with cash there is not way to trace it, so it wasn’t taxable.”

O Lord, please, this I pray: that Kent Hovind himself will testify at his trial. Jesus, fill Your devoted follower with True Christian hubris, that he will mount the witness stand to testify to Your glory and his special, privileged place as Your annointed representative on Earth. Amen.

---

P.S. Lord, don’t hold this against him.

During an IRS raid at the home, agents found cash stashed “all over the place.” About $42,000 was seized. During the search, more than a half-dozen guns were discovered at the Hovind’s home, including an SK-S semiautomatic.

I know it doesn’t sound very Christian, but especially good Christians are exempt from the principles that define good Christians, as we all know.

If you’ve been following the news from Florida, you must know that Kent Hovind’s trial has begun. We’ve learned how profitable it is to be creation science evangelist…

Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million. Their income came from amusement-park profits and merchandise — books, audiotapes and videotapes — they sold on site and through phone and online orders, she said. About half the money went to employees.

…and that the IRS doesn’t like him very much.

Hovind attempted to manipulate funds from the start of his ministry, she said.

In 1996, he filed for bankruptcy, a move Heldmeyer said Hovind designed to prevent the IRS from collecting taxes.

The IRS later determined Hovind filed under an “evil purpose,” Heldmeyer said.

She called Hovind a “very loud and vocal tax protester,” recalling a number of lawsuits he filed against the IRS over the past decade. Each was deemed frivolous and was thrown out, she said.

And on April 13, 2004, when IRS officials issued a search warrant for Hovind’s property, he resisted.

Some of his employees have testified about his wacky beliefs.

Popp testified that Hovind warned employees not to accept mail addressed to “KENT HOVIND.” He said Hovind told the workers the government created a corporation in his “all-caps name.” Hovind said if he accepted the mail, he would be accepting the responsibilities associated with that corporation, Popp testified.

He was kind of sleazy about forcing his employees to sign away their rights.

After the Dinosaur Adventure Land was raided on April 2004, Kent Hovind required his employees to sign nondisclosure agreements if they wanted to keep their jobs, she said.

“I was uncomfortable signing it, I guess, because of not having a full understanding,” Cooksey said.

Hovind also has an interesting approach to dealing with IRS investigators.

Hovind tried several bullying tactics against her, Powe testified. A recording that Hovind made of a phone conversation was then played. In the phone conversation, Hovind tried to make an appointment with Powe by 10 a.m. that day. When Powe said she couldn’t meet him because she had a staff meeting, Hovind threatened to sue her, which he did.

“Dr. Hovind sued me three times, maybe more,” Powe testified. “It just seemed to be something he did often.”

She testified that the cases were dismissed.

Now, in the latest news, we learn that Kent Hovind was too crazy for Pensacola Christian College, that bulwark of traditional religious thought. Testimony from Rebekah Horton, a PCC vice president, shows that he wasn’t very highly regarded by even the fundamentalist extremist Christians in his neighborhood, and she was advising people to stay away from him.

Horton said her first concern was that the woman was breaking the law. Horton also testified she was concerned about Pensacola Christian College students who worked at Hovind’s ministry.

“The day could come when you’re going to be in trouble,” she told the woman. “Because Mr. Hovind is going to be in trouble.”

Horton believed it was the college’s duty to report the misleading doctrine. Administration called the Internal Revenue Service and gave the tape to officials, she said.

“I didn’t want to see innocent people get led astray,” she said.

Pensacola Christian College then decided its students no longer were permitted to work with Creation Science Evangelism, Horton said.

I confess that I’m starting my mornings lately by turning to the Pensacola News Journal and searching for “Hovind” to pick up the latest stories about this creationist debacle. I do it even before I read my favorite web comics. And I laugh and laugh.