Democrats in Congress guilty of abuse of nonprofits

Trent Stamp of Charity Navigator points out that, rather than distinguishing themselves from Republicans Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, and Tom DeLay, each of whom played fast and loose with the rules on nonprofits, prominent Democrats in Congress are doing the same.

Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, and Evan Bayh are each officers in their family charities; their failure to disclose this makes them guilty of felonies. Pelosi calls her failure an "oversight" and promises to file amended annual disclosure statements.

Hate mail from a defender of telemarketing

Today I received the following email from John Martin of Phoenix (whose email address begins with "satguys01"), who was apparently set off by my web page reporting my record of lawsuits against telemarketers, which he came across about 30 minutes earlier while doing a Google search for "arizona telemarketing attorney" (could he be in need of one?):

Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:12:22 -0800 (PST)
From: John Martin
Subject: Get a life

You are just as bad as the telemarketers that call you.
Just like a scummy attorney that profits from filing
frivolous lawsuits. You raise the cost of doing business
for companies, raise taxes by overburdening the courts,
and therefore raise the cost of goods for consumers in the
marketplace.

What do you care? You made a dollar.

Telemarketing is critical for the economy to function. The
wheels would stop turning if there were no phones or business
conducted on them.

The Federal and State do no call list is just another angle
for the Fed and State to make a buck.

Just ask yourself, why is it legal for politicians to contact
and harass millions of citizens with automated messages and
call people on the so called do not call list? So its OK for
them to fund raise and get re elected (profit) using
unscrupulous methods. But a legitimate business offering
legit goods or services is restricted.

Are there Marketers that take advantage of people yes. Like
any other business there are bad apples. But most offer legit
goods and services.

Does your mailbox get full of junk mail? Do you watch
commercials on TV? or even now at the movies? Why not sue
them? Junk Mail does more damage to the environment than
anything else. But the US post service make money on it so
that will never stop.

Screen you calls, that's what caller id is for, hangup on
automated messages and telemarketers. And stop with the lame
lawsuits.  Do you really suffer any damages by listening to a
message or having a dialer hang up on you? Or are you just an
other greedy opportunist like you EVIL telemarketing
counterparts just out for a quick buck?

I sent the following reply:

From: "James J. Lippard" [my email addr]
To: John Martin
Subject: Re: Get a life
In-Reply-To: <400549.50780.qm@web62015.mail.re1.yahoo.com>

The difference, John, is that they are knowingly violating
the law, and I'm not.  None of my lawsuits have been
frivolous, which is why I have a 100% record of success.
I'm only raising the cost of business for companies that are
blatantly breaking the law; my impact on the courts is
negligible--I always offer to settle out of court for the
minimum statutory amounts before filing a lawsuit, and I
always file in small claims which minimizes the paperwork.
The money I collect is specified as damages in the statutes,
and serves not only to compensate me for the violations but
to act as a deterrent to further violations.  It has worked
pretty well--I don't get many such calls any more.

If you think the law is wrong, petition to have it changed.
But if you violate it, be prepared to get sued and to lose.

What's your interest that motivates you to send a nasty email
to someone you don't know?  From your email address, I would
guess that you're in the satellite dish resale business,
which is well known for its sleazy violations of
telemarketing law.

Are you a regular violator of the TCPA, John?

BTW, I have a nice life.  What kind of life do you have that
you seek enjoyment out of sending such an email as this?

For the record, I don't watch television commercials (thanks, TiVo!) and I'm also very opposed to spam (and much of my professional life in the Internet industry has been devoted to combatting it). We also don't go to see movies in the theater anymore except on rare occasion; we rent DVDs. I'm an advocate of permission-based marketing to individuals, not indiscriminate broadcast advertising.

State legislator who supported Scientology also supports global warming denial

Arizona State Representative Pamela Gorman (R-District 6, Anthem) was one of several legislators who accepted gifts from the Church of Scientology and helped promote bills for Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

She is also on the Legislative Advisory Board to the Heartland Institute, publisher of Environmental & Climate News, a publication that is still, as of its February 2007 issue, arguing that global warming is mythical. This issue contains articles such as "Greenland Coldest in 60 Years" and "Little Ice Age May Return Soon," and contains a set of graphs of global satellite temperatures on p. 7 that attributes 1998's high temperatures to El Nino. The Heartland Institute's past articles have included titles like "Eight Reasons Why 'Global Warming' is a Scam" (2003), "National Geographic Promotes Global Warming Myths" (2004), and "Michael Crichton is Right!" (2005)

(Rep. Gorman's Blogger profile lists "Anthem Shrugged" as one of her favorite books. Ayn Rand wrote books called Anthem and Atlas Shrugged, but it appears Rep. Gorman has combined them. She has apparently been too busy to blog much; she posted twice in January 2006 and has only posted again this month.)

Top Ten Christian Tourist Traps

The YesButNoButYes blog has a list of the top ten Christian tourist traps, with photos. Their list includes the Institute for Creation Research's museum, but not Hovind's Dinosaur Adventure Land. My favorites on the list (based on the photos) are Golgotha Mini Golf in Cave City, Kentucky (I especially like the propane tank that appears to be connected to Jesus at the 18th Hole--does he also function as a space heater?) and the decaying Holy Land USA in Waterbury, Connecticut. I've not visited any of the places on the YesButNoButYes list, though I've visited similar places, such as the Garden of Gethsemane park in Tucson (a blatant establishment clause and Arizona Constitution violation on municipal property at 602 W. Congress).

Telecoms behind gay marriage--and UAT can help stop them

These recordings are from 2005, but comic Eugene Mirman received calls from a nonprofit that was recommending United American Technologies as a long distance provider because AT&T, MCI, and Sprint promote gay marriage. United American Technologies, by contrast, was billed as a "Christian-based telephone company," with a "Faith, Family, and Freedom" campaign. Apparently the nonprofit was using prerecorded calls, which asked you to press one if you oppose gay marriage.

Mirman really gets them going--they accuse MCI of running a child pornography website, and say that they aim to destroy the ACLU, for example.

These calls were all illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, even though they were initiated by a nonprofit, since these calls were clearly intended to advertise UAT. Prerecorded calls to a residence are illegal.

United American Technologies is based in Oklahoma. The calls came from "Faith, Family, and Freedom," a 527 organization created by Oklahoma Rep. Lance Cargill, who is now Oklahoma's Speaker of the House. There are more details about these calls in Wikipedia's entry on United American Technologies.

(Hat tip: The Two Percent Company.)

Bad Google directions

Anson Kennedy got this wonderful set of directions on how to get to a location in New Jersey:
Stan Schwartz also received some creative directions:

Skeptical information and security information links sites

I've got a couple of websites of hierarchically organized links that I've maintained for quite some time, though I haven't really worked on them much lately. I currently get more spam link submissions than genuine link submissions to each, so I'd like to request contributions of legitimate entries.

One is my skeptical links site, which is fairly extensive, especially on a few topics such as Scientology, creationism, the websites of skeptical groups, and critiques of organized skepticism.

The other is my security links site, which is much less extensive, but still has some useful links, mostly on security and hacking tools and security standards.

Contributions are welcome--just go to the appropriate area and click the "add a site" link at the top of the page.

Presidential speeches tag cloud

Chirag Mehta has created "tag clouds" for a bunch of presidential speeches (including State of the Union addresses), with a slider so you can see how the topics have changed over time.

Chris Mooney points out that George W. Bush's State of the Union addresses have used "God" and synonyms twelve times, and "climate change" or "global warming" zero times.

Kearny Board of Education releases memo and statement

The Kearny Board of Education released a memo and statement last week regarding "the expression of personal religious beliefs by professional staff in the classroom." They have indicated that they will be hiring an outside professional to provide training to its teachers about "Constitutional parameters" and will institute a formal policy "expressing its strong commitment to the principle that personal religious beliefs of our institutional staff have no place in our classrooms."

Fear the "new atheists"

P.Z. Myers pointed out the beginnings of a backlash against "the new atheism" in the Wall Street Journal on January 5, now on January 16 Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis has joined in:

We’ve warned you about them before on our website—but now they’re on a much more aggressive march all across America. No longer are they just staying in their classrooms or writing books and articles in the comfort of their offices. They are “the new atheists,” and they are aggressively going after your children, your liberties, and your faith!
...

These atheists are not just publicity seekers. They are very serious about their mission. Dawkins, from England, was recently crusading across America to proclaim his atheism to newspapers, websites, and at public meetings.

According to Ham, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are coming for your children, and the best way to stop them is to give money to AiG so that they can complete their museum.