Poor Dr Dino, AKA Kent Hovind, AKA batshit crazy fundy guy, is a notorious tax cheat, and now the law has finally caught up with him. “Dinosaur Adventure Land” has been shut down, and he risks fines and the possibility of buildings being razed.
You know, Al Capone was taken down for tax evasion, too. As long as malicious stupidity isn’t criminal in this country, I’ll accept this strategy as one way to get Mr Hovind put away where he can stop doing harm.
(via The Panda’s Thumb)
(Since Kent Hovind is in the news for tax evasion again, I thought it would be nice to bring this article over here to the shiny new site.)
Ah, the continuing saga of Kent Hovind’s criminal industries…Hovind is an inexplicably popular creationist who, in addition to his dedication to creationist absurdities, has this devout belief that as a minister of Jesus, he is a resident of a celestial, Christian nation independent of the secular government of the United States, i.e., he doesn’t have to pay taxes. Ever. On anything. And little things like zoning laws? Pffft. They don’t apply to him. Only Jesus’s law counts, and conveniently enough, Jesus says that Kent gets to keep all of his money. (Isn’t it funny how Jesus, when he was alive, preached about rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, helped the poor and sick, and was sort of down on the wealthy and worldly? Now that he’s dead, he’s had a change of heart and tells all his best friends to stockpile the moolah. I guess slow torture and execution turns people into Republicans.) (Hey, you don’t think…nah. Couldn’t be. Is the answer to WWJD, “Abu Ghraib”?)
The Discovery Institute flailed about hopelessly trying to deny the value of Tiktaalik (which, as commenters pointed out, is kind of weird in itself—I thought ID didn’t deny the facts of evolution, just the mechanisms), but what about those forthright creationists at Answers in Genesis? They also fall all over themselves to argue the bad, bad evidence away. Read the Lancelet’s rebuttal to see Menton wrung out like dishrag.
The interesting thing about all this is that the Menton and Looy are simply pointing out that Tiktaalik has attributes of a fish, but doing nothing to dispute the observed similarities with tetrapods. Has it ever dawned on them that an animal somewhere between fishes and tetrapods might actually have some attributes of a fish? What makes me wonder is why AiG didn’t post a picture of the specimen. There are, by now, tons of pictures on media websites all over the place. A Google image search for “tiktaalik” turns out four pages of results. Here’s why: they’re scared, deathly scared. The implications of Tiktaalik are so bloody obvious that they have a lot of work to do in order to deal with this one.
Give ’em time. They’ll figure out yet another dishonest line of patter to babble out while keeping their eyes clamped tightly shut.
The poor babies in Seattle are in a state of denial.
These fish are not intermediates, explain Discovery Institute scientists I queried about the find. Tiktaalik roseae is one of a set of lobe-finned fishes that include very curious mosaics–these fishes have advanced characteristics of several different groups. They are not intermediates in the sense that they are half-fish/half-tetrapod. Rather, they have some tetrapod-like features. The anatomical characters of Tiktaalik and similar taxa were “coded” and analyzed by a computer program. Because of the presence of some advanced characters, the analysis placed Tiktaalik next to a group of tetrapod-like fishes. What is clear is that forms like Tiktaalik are a melange of primitive and more developed features.
Eric Pianka is eccentric, opinionated, and outspoken; many people might disagree with specific bits and pieces of his position. But I don’t think that he is a eugenicist, a hate-filled fan of the Third Reich, an advocate of planned genocide, anti-human, or a crazed scientist planning the death of humanity. Nick Matzke has compiled a list of the slander that’s been aimed at Pianka. It ain’t pretty.
Transcripts of his talks are beginning to emerge; he has given this same talk, “The Vanishing Book of Life”, seven times now, and the only time it has received this level of vituperation is when a creationist in the audience distorted its message. It’s an entirely manufactured controversy, to no one’s surprise: that’s what creationists do.
I’m a Bill Nye fan, so it was good to learn that he’s not reluctant to point out the foolishness of creationists.
The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”
He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.
A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.
“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.
Nye also was critical of what he said was governmental agencies’ lack of action, even lack of understanding, in protecting the Earth from global warming and wasted resources.
My kind of guy. I have to wonder why a fundagelical who is dedicated to a literal interpretation of an old superstition would even bother going to a science talk, though…and please don’t try to tell me that scientists and popularizers have to tread lightly on blatant idiocies.
The Second Edition of the Darwin is Dead carnival is up. I think we can declare that the “Darwin is Dead carnival” is dead now. Orac seems to have had a little problem tallying up the entries, but out of 7 links:
I’m sorry to say that the selection is pathetic. Try comparing this thing to the Tangled Bank (which has a new edition coming up next week, by the way)—creationists have another reason to be embarrassed.
Christian corruption at its finest: here’s a Florida Republican working to give a money-making park a tax exemption.
A biblical theme park in Orlando where guests pay $30 admission to munch on “Goliath” burgers and explore reproductions of 2000-year-old tombs and temples could get a property tax exemption written into state law.
A Senate committee easily passed a bill that would grant theme parks “used to exhibit, illustrate, and interpret biblical manuscripts … ” an exemption from local property taxes, like churches, even though the parks charge money.
Brian Alters, of McGill University, had a grant proposal turned down for an unusual reason.
A reader sent me a note about this rather well known and deeply stupid poster from Jack Chick…I’d already seen it and addressed it some time ago, but I thought I’d bring back this old article.
Jack Chick, the author of the infamous Big Daddy anti-evolution tract, has an amusing poster he’s peddling.
It purportedly illustrates a series of frauds in the reported evolutionary history of human beings. The text is too tiny to read at this size, but it’s listed at Chick’s site, and I reproduce it below, along with my response.
