Fundies say the darndest things!

This is a treasure trove of mind-bogglingly idiotic statements.

Some examples:

#2: "No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims."

#3 (I've seen this one before): "One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it. [emphasis added]" (FSTDT! Post of the Year for 2005)

#4: "I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!" ("Occam's Razor Disagrees" Award winner)

#9: "There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don't know that much about it does not bother me in the least." (Fundamentalism in a Nutshell Award winner)

(Via Beth Wolzson on the SKEPTIC mailing list.)

Creationist finances: some conclusions

This post is a followup to my series of ten posts about the finances of creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and, though not reported in Cole's article, I also looked at Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation.

As Nick Matzke pointed out in a comment on the last of these, there are other creationist organizations out there of some significance, such as the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (publisher of the creationist/intelligent design textbook, Of Pandas and People), Probe Ministries (Ray Bohlin's group in Texas which authored the annotated bibliography of Josh McDowell's book Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity--the anti-evolution sections of which were ghost authored by an individual who now supports evolution), and Hugh Ross's old-earth creationist group, Reasons To Believe. There are also five groups that were listed in Cole's article which I did not cover--these were the five smallest groups, the Creation Education Society of Tennessee, the Creation Resource Foundation of El Dorado, California, the Creation Science Association for Mid-America of Kansas City, Missouri (originators of the "Lucy's knee joint" argument), the Creation-Science Fellowship of Pittsburgh, and the Genesis Institute of Mead, Washington. And there are still others out there, like the Twin Cities Creation Science Association of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Kent Hovind's organization (which didn't file anything with the IRS, which is part of why he's in jail right now), and various online creationist ministries.

I may, as Nick suggested, take a look at some of these others in the future.

At this point, however, I wanted to see if any conclusions can be drawn from the data in the Form 990s of the groups I've covered so far. I took a look at one section of each of the Form 990s which gives income data for previous years, and totaled those amounts up for each year across all the groups for which I had data. In some cases, I had to use other sources which were not quite comparable (such as the revenue figures from John Cole's article), but are probably good enough for approximation to look at the size of the creationist market each year. (The main difference between the income figures I used versus the revenue figures is that the income figures show money coming in for purchases without subtracting the cost of goods sold, while the revenue numbers deduct the cost of goods sold.) The Discovery Institute's totals were used, even though the DI does more than creationism, so that may have contributed to an overestimate, while the omission of all of the other groups above would have contributed to an underestimate. Since the DI brings in considerably more revenue than the other groups, it would take quite a few creationist groups making less than $100,000 a year to make up the difference. So this can't be considered definitive.

Given this total size of the creationist market for each year, I then looked at each group's percentage of that marketplace, and how it has changed over time. Here are the numbers, rounded to the closest $1 million:

1998:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 45%
Answers in Genesis: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 3%
Creation Research Society: no data
All others: less than 1% each

1999:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 41%
Answers in Genesis: 30%
Discovery Institute: 13%
Creation Evidence Museum: 7%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
All others: less than 1% each

2000:
$16 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 34%
Discovery Institute: 10%
Creation Evidence Museum: 4%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2001:
$20 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 30%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2002:
$19 million market
Answers in Genesis: 49%
Institute for Creation Research: 31%
Discovery Institute: 12%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2003:
$21 million market
Answers in Genesis: 52%
Institute for Creation Research: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2004:
$22 million market
Answers in Genesis: 59%
Institute for Creation Research: 20%
Discovery Institute: 16%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Evidence Museum: no data
Creation Illustrated Ministries: no data

Even with these approximations and limitations, there are a few things that stand out clearly:

1. The marketplace for creationism has been growing.
2. Answers in Genesis' market share has grown and dominates the market.
3. The Institute for Creation Research has had a declining market share.
4. The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture has had a fairly static market share (overrepresented here, as well, since their numbers include other branches of the DI).
5. Other creationist groups have tended to lose market share in the face of Answers in Genesis's dominance, even if their overall revenue has grown.

Creationist finances: Center for Scientific Creation

This is the tenth and final in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and now we finally reach Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to complete the series. Although Brown's organization was not included in Cole's article, I include this one because it is a Phoenix-based organization and one that I've personally interacted with. Walter Brown holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT. He is a retired Air Force colonel who has taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy, a hotbed of Christian evangelism. He bills himself as a life-long evolutionist who converted to creationism after extensive scientific study. He has worked as a creationism evangelist, mainly teaching seminars in churches, since his retirement from the Air Force in 1980. He is the author of a book listing specific arguments for a young earth and against evolution titled In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, which he now makes available online on his website, creationscience.com. Part of his book is an argument for his specific theory of flood geology called hydroplate theory (which Robert Schadewald referred to as a theory of "continental zip"), which is not taken seriously by most of his fellow young-earth creationists. Brown hasn't submitted his theory for peer-reviewed publication, even though there are creationist journals open to him, such as the Creation Research Society Quarterly and the Journal of Creation (formerly the Ex Nihilo Technical Journal). Brown has advocated a number of very bad arguments for a young earth which have been refuted even by his own fellow creationists, including the moon dust argument, the shrinking sun argument, and an argument from missing time based on a misunderstanding of leap seconds, which Brown ended up removing from later editions of his book. Brown has made the erroneous arguments that Lucy's knee joint was found away from the rest of the skeleton and that Archaeopteryx is a hoax. His book's assessment of human evolution has been critiqued in detail by Jim Foley on the talkorigins.org website. Brown is well-known for his debate challenge, in which he asks for a Ph.D.-credentialed evolutionist to engage him in a written debate. I engaged in a written debate with Brown in the pages of the Creation/Evolution journal, which appeared in three successive issues in 1989-1990. In 1998, Walter Brown was appointed to the committee to review Arizona's state science standards by a creationist member of the state Board of Education, but he was unable to have any significant influence. Other members of the committee included ASU philosophy of science professor Jane Maienschein (appointed by ASU President Lattie Coor) and ASU biology professor Steve Rissing (appointed by Arizona State Superintendent of Public Education Lisa Graham Keegan). The final standards produced by the group were strongly supportive of teaching evolutionary science and were approved by the Board of Education in a 6-3 vote. Brown apparently originally moved to Phoenix to study geology with ASU geology professor Robert S. Dietz (b. 1914, d. 1995), who was a major figure in the development of the theory of seafloor spreading and continental drift. Dietz was a strong opponent of creationism (and was the faculty advisor to the Phoenix Skeptics group which I initially created as a student organization at ASU). Unfortunately, Dietz engaged in some ill-considered public debates late in his life in which he performed rather poorly, including a public debate with Brown at ASU. Although Brown and Dietz disagreed with each other on science and religion, they apparently considered each other to be friends. The financial data for the Center for Scientific Creation from GuideStar.org: 2003: Revenue: $61,020.23 ($12,915.95 donations, $47,052.66 from goods sold) Expenses: $116,996.55 Net assets at end of year: $108,858.55 Salaries: $97,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $55,000 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $35,000 2004: Revenue: $57,274.67 ($15,216.01 donations, $41,846.93 from goods sold) Expenses: $69,671.71 Net assets at end of year: $96,461.51 Salaries: $52,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $32,083 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $20,417 2005: Revenue: $61,152.11 ($16,554.36 in donations, $44,427.29 from goods sold) Expenses: $101,505.78 Net assets at end of year: $56,107.84 Salaries: $82,500 Dr. Walter T. Brown, Jr., president and director: $50,417 Mrs. Margaret H. Brown, secretary and treasurer: $32,083 Earlier year donations and gross merchandise sales (i.e., not profit, from 2003 Form 990--the CSC cost of goods sold appears to generally be about 1/3 of the sales price): 1999: Donations: $11,208.30 Merchandise sales: $74,053.17 2000: Donations: $10,842.00 Merchandise sales: $38,195.67 2001: Donations: $52,709.18 Merchandise sales: $103,724.03 2002: Donations: $11,437.15 Merchandise sales: $94,476.13 CSC's merchandise sales bring more of its revenue than donations. Those appear to have peaked in 2001, and may be continuing a decline in recent years (though 2005 was better than 2004). The organization has spent more than it has taken in for the last three years of available reports, with its net assets dropping by almost half from 2003 to 2005, from $108,858.55 to $56,107.84. It's not clear whether CSC has any plans for succession after Brown is gone. I've been told that Brown's son rejects creationism and his father's religious views. You can find CSC's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

Creationist finances: the Discovery Institute

This is the ninth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, and Creation Worldview Ministries. Now, the Discovery Institute. The Discovery Institute is a Seattle-based think tank founded by Bruce Chapman, former secretary of state for the State of Washington and former deputy assistant to Ronald Reagan. He founded DI in 1990, initially focused on regional issues such as transportation and communication. The DI's transportation arm, called the Cascadia Project, received several million dollars in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 1996, Chapman and political scientist John G. West secured funding from C. Davis Weyerhauser's Stewardship Foundation, Howard Ahmanson, and others to create an organization within DI called the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture "seek[ing] nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and promoting "intelligent design." The initial DI research fellows were Steven Meyer, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, and Paul Nelson, with Meyer and West as co-directors of CRSC and Phillip Johnson as an advisor. The name of the center was subsequently shortened to the Center for Science and Culture (CSC). In 1999 the DI's "Wedge document" was leaked to the public, the circumstances of which became known in a 2006 story in the Seattle Weekly. You can find much more about the Discovery Institute at The Panda's Thumb blog. The financial figures below are for the Discovery Institute as a whole, not the CSC specifically. As usual, the baseline financial information (1997) is from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1997: Revenue: $1,832,398 Expenses: $1,323,899 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2002: Revenue: $2,386,072 ($2,293,047 donations, $13,277 from goods sold) Expenses: $2,404,242 Net expenses at end of year: $1,819,294 Salaries: $238,035 executives/directors, $756,659 other salaries Individual salaries not listed, Form 990 states they are "available at office." 2003: Revenue: $4,233,814 ($4,141,679 donations, $10,466 from goods sold) Expenses: $2,499,077 Net assets at end of year: $3,554,031 Salaries: $338,977 executives/directors, $627,285 other salaries Executives/directors: Douglas Bilderback, treasurer: $23,397 Steven Buri, executive director: $72,621 Bruce Chapman, president: $131,696 Eric Garcia, treasurer: $16,430 Jay Richards, vice president: $56,750 Marshall Sana, secretary: $38,083 Employees: Bruce Agnew: $92,500 Steven Meyer: $90,000 John Drescher: $75,000 Teresa Gonzales: $55,000 2004: Revenue: $3,504,062 ($3,260,859 in donations, $18,572 from goods sold) Expenses: $3,539,228 Net assets at end of year: $3,518,865 Salaries: $354,000 executives/directors, $947,479 other salaries Steven Buri, executive director: $80,000 Bruce Chapman, president: $132,000 Eric Garcia, treasurer: $39,000 Jay Richards, vice president: $63,000 Marshall Sana, secretary: $40,000 Steven Meyer, vice president: $102,500 Employees: Bruce Agnew, program policy director: $105,000 Tom Till, program director: $105,000 John Drescher, program director: $85,000 Teresa Gonzales, program manager: $60,000 The Discovery Institute is an organization with considerable revenue, allowing it to pay extremely lucrative salaries to its senior management and employees. It has shown growth over the years, though revenue dipped in 2004. It has been influential in media coverage of intelligent design, though it has yet to fulfill its promises of scientific research supporting intelligent design and has suffered major defeats in the legal arena. Despite its high revenue, it is still smaller than Answers in Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research, which appear to me to continue to have better grassroots support than the Discovery Institute. You can find DI's 2002 Form 990 here, 2003 Form 990 here, and their 2004 Form 990 here.

Creationist finances: Creation Worldview Ministries

This is the eighth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, and the Creation Research Society. Next up, Creation Worldview Ministries. Creation Worldview Ministries is "an educational missionary organization" run by Grady McMurtry of Orlando, Florida. McMurtry holds a doctorate in theology from the School of Theology of Columbus, Georgia. He gives sermons and lectures promotion creationism, publishes a monthly newsletter, and sells books, CDs, DVDs, and other products through the Creation Worldview Ministries website. As usual, the baseline financial information (1998) is from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1998: Revenue: $114,604 Expenses: $93,076 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2003: Revenue: $139,827 ($95,049 donations, $43,759 from goods sold) Expenses: $135,636 Net assets at end of year: $122,154 Salary: Grady McMurtry, president/director: $48,500 2004: Revenue: $143,008 ($92,178 in donations, $42,880 from goods sold) Expenses: $172,977 Net assets at end of year: $92,185 Salary: Grady McMurtry, president/director: $56,000 2005: Revenue: $141,857 ($95,571 in donations, $43,486 from goods sold) Expenses: $140,968 Net assets at end of year: $93,074 Salary: Grady McMurtry, president/director: $57,500 Earlier year donations (from 2003 Form 990): 1999: $95,642 2000: $81,793 2001: $93,996 2002: $88,082 You can find CWM's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

Creationist finances: Creation Research Society

This is the seventh in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, and Creation Moments. Now for an Arizona-based organization, the Creation Research Society. The Creation Research Society (CRS) was organized in 1963 by geneticist Walter Lammerts (b. 1904, d. 1996) and biologist William J. Tinkle (b. 1892, d. 1981) as an alternative to the American Scientific Affiliation and replacement to the defunct Deluge Geology Society. The CRS, originally called the Creation Research Advisory Committee, began with invitations to join an anti-evolution group within the ASA, which were sent to Henry M. Morris, Frank Lewis Marsh, Molleurus Couperus, Edwin Y. Monsma, R. Laird Harris, Duane T. Gish, Philip V. Livdahl, and Edward L. Kessel. Of these, Kessel, a theistic evolutionist, did not join, and Livdahl did not respond. It was Henry Morris who suggested creating a separate society. (The founding of the CRS is described in Ronald Numbers' The Creationists, pp. 247-257). The ASA was considered unacceptable because it permitted evolutionists as members; membership in the CRS required assent to a four-point statement of belief:

1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

3. The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

4. We are an organization of Christian men and women of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

The Creation Research Society has published a peer-reviewed journal, the Creation Research Society Quarterly, since 1964, and a bimonthly newsletter for a more popular audience, Creation Matters, since 1996. Voting membership in CRS requires at least a master's degree in some scientific field; there are non-voting memberships for other interested people, but all must agree with the above statement of belief. CRS also operates the Van Andel Creation Research Center just north of Chino Valley, Arizona, which was named after Jay Van Andel (b. 1924, d. 2004), one of the two co-founders (with Rich DeVos) of Amway (both of whom are financial supporters of creationism). As usual, the baseline financial information (1997 in this case) is from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1997: Revenue: $263,391 Expenses: ? (not given in Cole's article) And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2003: Revenue: $245,867 ($153,356 donations, $44,590 in dues, $27,225 from goods sold) Expenses: $300,589 Net assets at end of year: $1,109,742 Salary: John Meyer, lab director: $38,042 2004: Revenue: $324,942 ($236,244 in donations, $5,732 in program service revenue, $38,387 in dues, $13,981 from goods sold) Expenses: $330,803 Net assets at end of year: $1,102,797 Salary: Kevin Anderson, director: $39,598 In 2005, the CRS switched to a July-June fiscal year, so their 2005 Form 990 is for six months only (and is on a 2004 form). 2005 (January-June only): Revenue: $110,967 ($49,347 in donations, $2,663 in program service revenue, $28,348 in dues, $13,983 from goods sold) Expenses: $153,841 Net assets at end of year: $1,052,000 Salary: Kevin Anderson, director: $23,175 2005 numbers doubled for an estimate of full-year (which doesn't account for seasonal variation): Revenue: $221,934 ($98,694 in donations, $5,326 in program service revenue, $56,696 in dues, $27,996 from goods sold) Expenses: $307,682 Would would leave net assets of: $1,009,126 Salary: Kevin Anderson, director: $46,350 CRS has had more expenses than revenues over the last three years reported at GuideStar.org. Unless their revenue is large in the second half of the year, it looks like 2005 shows a dip in revenue; it appears that they likely receive most membership dues in the first half of the year (unless they saw substantial growth in 2005 after a decline from 2003 to 2004). CRS has a little over half a million dollars worth of investments to draw upon to cover these annual deficits. You can find CRS's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

My bank is on the ball

I got a call from the fraud department of my bank this morning, asking me whether I had used my debit card this morning at The Sports Basement in San Francisco for a $71.00 charge. I said that I hadn't, and they said there was a debit prenotification, which they've seen as a prelude to withdrawals from around the globe using cloned cards or electronic access to accounts. They had already blocked further use of my card information, and under my banking agreement I would not be liable for any loss in any case.

When I asked how my information got out, they indicated that they believe the miscreants are just using brute force--changing numbers based on a known card to find new valid card numbers. The only alternative I could see based on my card habits would be if I inadvertently used an ATM with a skimmer attached to the front of it somewhere or fell victim to an ATM with a tapped phone line connection. I rarely use ATMs these days; this may provide me with some incentive to do so even less frequently.

Creationist finances: Creation Moments

This is the sixth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, and Creation Illustrated Ministries. Next up, Creation Moments. Creation Moments was originally the Bible-Science Association, founded in 1963 by Pastor Walter Lang (not to be confused with the director of "The King and I"). "Creation Moments" was a short radio program and a column in the Bible-Science Newsletter, a monthly periodical published on newsprint that was home to some of the wackier claims of young-earth creationism, which often made for entertaining reading. One regular contributor was Nancy Pearcey, who was played a significant role in the development of "intelligent design," including contributing material previously published in the Bible-Science Newsletter to the book Of Pandas and People. Pandas played a major role in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, as it was over successive drafts of that book that the words "creationism" and "creation science" transformed into "intelligent design" in later revisions. Bible-Science Newsletter editor Pastor Paul A. Bartz was Lang's successor, and as "Creation Moments" became more popular than the newsletter, the organization's name was changed accordingly. The Bible-Science Newsletter ceased publication in 1998, but the "Creation Moments" radio program is syndicated on multiple Christian radio networks and is broadcast in both English and Spanish, where it appears daily. Each year the daily scripts are combined into an annual volume of devotionals which the organization sells along with other books and items like calendars and Christmas cards. The organization is now under the management of Lu Ann Strombeck, its Chief Operating Officer. Canadian creationist Ian T. Taylor, author of "In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order" is on its board of directors and his organization, TFE Publishing, is occasionally paid by the organization to edit scripts. Taylor is perhaps best known for claiming (along with Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingh) that Archaeopteryx is a hoaxed fossil created by putting feathers on a true reptile, while other creationists (such as Answers in Genesis) claim that it is a true bird and not a reptile. Creation Moments, Inc. refers to itself as "CMI," which is the same label used by Creation Ministries International, the organization composed of the Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada groups that split off from Answers in Genesis. Creation Moments is based in Foley, Minnesota. As usual, the 1998 information from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1998: Revenue: $292,318 Expenses: $284,846 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2003 (July 2003-June 2004): Revenue: $308,506 ($218,240 donations, $49,327 program service revenue which is $48,877 in book sales and $450 in seminar income) Expenses: $228,679 Net assets at end of year: $120,440 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $30,900 2004 (July 2004-June 2005): Revenue: $269,996 ($229,007 in donations, $40,645 in program service revenue which is $40,145 in book sales and $500 in seminar income) Expenses: $241,860 Net assets at end of year: $149,233 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $32,471 2005 (July 2005-June 2006): Revenue: $268,966 ($217,492 in donations, $51,050 in program service revenue which is entirely from book sales) Expenses: $256,358 Net assets at end of year: $161,184 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $34,590 Creation Moments has its own building for its offices, and as of June 2006 owes $21,501 on its mortgage, paying $550/mo. The original mortgage was only $35,000; they apparently paid $44,400 for land and $96,166,71 for the building. Their donations and revenue have grown over the last few years, except for a dip in book sales in 2004. You can find CM's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

Bush doesn't want the public to know who visits

After being embarrassed in the Jack Abramoff scandal by records of Abramoff's visits to the White House in Secret Service records, the White House signed an agreement with Secret Service that the visitor records they collect count as White House property, not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Talking Points Memo has the memorandum of understanding here.

Kerry and the troops photo shows Michelle Malkin's unreliability

A photo of John Kerry eating breakfast "alone" in the U.S. Embassy mess hall in Baghdad was circulating in the right-wing blogosphere, touted as evidence that he was shunned by the troops. The left-wing blogosphere's initial response was to question the authenticity of the photo due to the erroneous date/time stamp on the photo (caused by the photographer failing to set the date on the camera) and the presence of the flags of Britain and Portugal in the background (which other photos and personnel on site have confirmed are really there--and the Portugal one will be removed since Portugal no longer has personnel in Iraq).

Michelle Malkin supplied evidence of the authenticity of the photo (but failed to recognize that it disproved her claim of Kerry being snubbed) by locating another photograph with Kerry, wearing the same shirt, sitting and eating with the troops. She then harshly criticized those who argued that the photograph was a fake, throwing out charges of "hysterics" and "moonbattery."

But now Greg Sargent at TPM Muckraker has tracked down the details of what Kerry was doing sitting with at least one person in a suit (visible in the photo--Kerry was clearly not alone)--he was intentionally sitting away from everyone else in order to have an off-the-record conversation with two reporters, Marc Santora of The New York Times and Mark Danner of The New York Review and The New Yorker. They confirm that Kerry was not being snubbed by the troops, and in fact soldiers stopped by during their conversation to ask for photographs with Kerry:

"Santora was to my right," Danner also said. "It was very early in the morning at about 8:30, in the green zone. The reason that people weren't sitting directly around us was that we were having a private conversation." Asked if the troops showed animosity to Kerry, Danner said: "Not in any way that I noticed. A number of soldiers came up and asked to have their photograph taken with him."

This is typical of Malkin--right on a specific detail (the photo was genuine) but completely wrong in the overall argument (that Kerry was being snubbed by the troops). Will she or the other conservative bloggers who have made the claim that Kerry was eating alone because he was snubbed by the troops admit their error?

UPDATE (February 1, 2007): Snopes also has coverage of this Malkin claim.