David Mullen

• [groups|Rolla]
• [music|Fiona Apple -- Limp]

From the Rolla Daily News:

Zero Five, located on Pine Street in Rolla, is hoping its personal property and real estate taxes will be waived because of the coffee shop's role as a Christian student outreach ministry.

Eddie Jones, pastor at the Christian Life Center, which owns and operates Zero Five, spoke with the Phelps County Commission on Thursday about the business' taxes.

Zero Five acquired the building on Pine Street in September 2005 and has not paid real estate or personal property taxes since.

Jones said the lack of payment was a misunderstanding on the part of Zero Five. The business filed for sales tax exemption with the state when it opened, and Jones believed the exception excluded Zero Five from real estate and personal property taxes as well.

Adding to the confusion is the Christian Life Center's non-for-profit status, because Zero Five is an extension of the church and is used for worship meetings.

"We operated that as a ministry of our church," Jones said. "This is an outreach facility, not a money-making thing. I feel that we have provided a service in having a community outreach center."

According to the Missouri Revised Statutes, a church's tax-exempt status is determined based on what the church's facilities are used for, which must include worship services on a frequent and regular basis. The church also must not accept payment for goods or services.

Even though youth services are being held there, it's not being used exclusively for that purpose, Phelps County Assessor Kevin Rasmussen said at Thursday’s meeting.

In fact, churches that run daycares and accept payment for such services technically should be paying personal property taxes and real estate taxes, though Rasmussen said that is a bridge he does not think any assessor in the state will cross.

Zero Five owes a total of $2,300 in real estate taxes and $400 in personal property taxes from 2005 and 2006. Taxes owed by the business are already delinquent.

• [categories|Marching Morons]
• [music|Die in Progress -- The long way home]

I heard about this case a while ago, but I just assumed the teacher would be fired and that, mercifully, would be that. Revisiting the case, it turns out that even I have overestimated my country. A majority of the town has turned against Matthew LaClair, the student who recorded the lectures, and is attempting to make his life a living Hell, presumably to compensate for the utter gaping lack of a real one. Actually, LaClair probably knew he'd be outnumbered, but he's doing his best to stick it to these assholes anyway; good for him. Via Pharyngula, I see also that the Internets have come to show their support for Matt.

• [categories|LOL Patrol]
• [music|Betty X -- The Sins, They Run Like Wine]

'Nuff said.

• [groups|Rolla]
• [music|Velcra -- Our Will Against Their Will]

From what I've heard, I'm relatively happy with the way the elections turned out. Amendment 2 and Proposition B passed, and we narrowly defeated that slimeball Talent. I'm not overly thrilled about the Democratic gains, simply because I fear it may have been due to the rise of the "socially conservative" Democrat, that is, the realization that you can be in favor of a giant welfare state, and also an anti-choice Bible-thumping bigot. It's the perfect crowd-pleasing mix of batshit-crazy ideologies. But I was indeed cheered by the subsequent table-pounding outrage at UMR, to say nothing of Homeschool Alumni, as the results came in. There's the usual whining that Republicans "police those who intend to harm the people and state", whereas "dim-wit-ocrats" police "religion, business, and anyone who doesn't hold hands and sing 'kum-bay-yah'"; plus some mildly interesting posts.

The most sensible person on Seek42, which is rather like saying the swellest dude goose-stepping under the swastika, is alum "zkissane". But he's one of those rabidly capitalist nitwits for "freedom" (LOL) who thinks free software is a sin against God Da Market. So you'll probably be free to own guns and have abortions, depending, of course, on who you work for and how much they're paying you, and provided you aren't caught being involved with evil socialist sects such as GNU/Linux.

And hey, if you don't like working for Wal-Mart or Hardee's, just move to North Korea, you commie. This is the Land of the Free: assuming, of course, you have a fancy engineering degree from the Missouri Institute of Technology, some nice suits, and a mouth that knows when to stay shut. Also, it wouldn't hurt to partake deeply of the delusion that we can run a globalist, capitalist, oil-fed, car-centered economy just as well on ethanol. Or something. We'll think of something.

OK, I admit it: I voted Libertarian on the 7th, mostly in hopes of fucking up the system at least a little bit, and because I'm expected to vote for somebody. Unlike most rich computer guys voting Libertarian, I'm—well, I'm not rich, for starters. But I rather doubt that the sort of Microsoft-style capitalism worshipped by UMR people can persist in a post-fossil-fuels, post-Fearless-Leader-who-thinks-he's-a-cowboy world. It's just a feeling, so I'd like to see a lot more discussion on this. But that's my hunch: at best we'll have the sort of capitalism practiced in the Mad Max movies. It's not my cup of tea, but apparently many of us find it preferable to the disturbing thought of people voluntarily cooperating to provide for each other's needs—oh, the horror.

I expect we'll be seeing some of these people on Civil Brights; nobody here will be censoring anyone for anything, of course, but I won't bother discussing much of anything with such corporate ass-kissers and asses demanding to be smooched. What caught my eye in Z's most recent post is the statement, "Don't tell me that I'm not a citizen because I'm an atheist." Admirable, that, but inevitably followed by: "Don't tell me what I have to pay my employees." While we're being honest with ourselves, let's take a look at his blog: "I'm sorry. If I invent something, I don't give a shit about how it benefits society. I want to know how much money it will make me." Y'see, he's doing his part to give atheists a good name. Praise the Lord! Er, I mean, Da Market.

It should not surprise you that this particular Renaissance Dirtbag works for Titan Corporation: yes, that Titan Corporation. Lots of money and not much benefit for anyone; that's what a good advocate of capitalist "freedom" is all about.

• [groups|Rolla]
• [categories|Brutal Truth Industries]
• [music|Public Enemy -- By the Time I Get to Arizona]

My new favorite game (next to strip tic-tac-toe, which I'm still not very good at) is to stick the new Dawkins flyer, with "civilbrights.net" written on the bottom, on a couple of bulletin boards around campus and see how long they stay up. The current record is Not Very Fucking Long. See if you can top it!

I can't tell you how happy I am to see the rare forum that isn't an embarrassment to forums everywhere. Shine on, you wise Richard-Dawkins-book-reading peoples (I hope).

P.S. The UMR Library needs more bathrooms. Have you ever considered how hard it is to pee when there are 2 or 3 guys waiting for the same urinal? Maybe you didn't want to know that, but it's knowledge that will serve you well, I'm sure.

• [music|Cell -- blue oranges]

So the 24 Season 6 trailer just came out. It's pretty good, but I found myself wishing for less kablooie and more Chloe. Is there something deeply wrong with me? Discuss.

Secondly, if you're watching only one TV show this season, it should be Jericho (on tonight). Having seen a few short teasers, I wasn't expecting much when I tuned into the pilot (another weird drama?), but it really grabbed me. At one point a school bus crashes and the hero, a prodigal son of sorts, has to perform a tracheotomy on a little girl with a ball-point pen and a pocket knife. One of the other kids asks him, "Where did you learn to do that?" "Military school." "Were you a soldier?" "No, a screwup." I've been hooked ever since. If you like post-apocalyptic stuff then you'll be sure to adore this show, and even if that's not usually your thing, give it a chance.

It's been a while since there was a movie I wanted to see, but it's finally here! Then it's back to gross-out comedies, brain-dead chick flicks, and action movies barely distinguishable from one another, I suppose. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

• [categories|Home School Courtship Report]
• [music|Senser -- Age of Panic]

The tragedy of Christian dominionism, from a personal perspective.

• [categories|LOL Patrol]

Polish police hunt farting dissident. Really.

How afraid should I be of creationists with loaded weapons? For some reason I'm not very. Maybe it's because banging away at a harmless target is not good practice for taking over the world, and I imagine that's all their homeschooled wingnut children are taught to do. Sorry if this comes as a raging shock to anyone, but your GUNS GUNS GUNS I'M SUCH A MANLY MAN don't stack up against improvised weaponry, the element of surprise, and the element of, y'know, half a brain. Did I say "improvised weaponry"? No, nothing to see here; move along.

• [categories|civilbrights.net]
• [music|Flyleaf -- Fully Alive]

I went ahead and rolled out the new international version of the site, even though I haven't yet added quite all the features I wanted to, largely because I simply forgot. And no, I don't make shopping lists, either. Quit heckling.

1. I dropped anonymous posting, for reasons I hope are obvious. I'll add support for OpenID eventually.
2. I lazily went with a monochromatic-blue design (based on the hue of the Brights logo) since this is an international site and blue is the only universally-positive color that I'm aware of. That's probably why the Brights logo is blue, though personally I favor the flame. Apparently studies show that orange is "one of Americans' least favorite colors".
3. You may be interested to know that the software I wrote now has a name: Kira, after a character in one of my favorite books, Gathering Blue. Incidentally, Kira is a Persian word meaning "sun".
4. The site is having character-encoding issues since I switched to UTF-8 in order to support all languages. Previously it was ISO-8859-1, and I ran iconv on the database but the Windows-specific gunk must have remained, or something like that. Let me know if you understand this sort of thing better than I do, or if you want to assist me in assassinating Bill Gates (and not with a pie).

• [categories|Home School Courtship Report]

I heard this song back when MP3.com had that kind of thing; they completely reformatted the site and wiped out all the good stuff (dark ambient, symphonic electronica, industrial, erotica, noise, spoken word, etc.) that was there before. Now I can't find it anywhere since I don't remember the band. Anyway, it goes like this:

read more »

• [categories|LOL Patrol]

(Previously.) As of Monday, Kent Hovind pled nolo contendere ("no contest") to the charges. So sayeth Wikipedia:

The plea brings to an end a 5-year battle over a $50.00 building permit. Hovind estimates he spent $40,000 in legal expenses on this case.

• [categories|Hallmark Channel]

Funny joke. It's probably nothing you haven't seen in email forwards, but it reminded me of my usual suckitude in the skill of this entry's title, even though I'm single. If I'm really lucky, I think of the right thing long after it should have been said (like engineering the perfect retort), but then I don't know if it would have been the right thing, anyway; it's all theoretical. Mostly I forget about it, but then some things remind me of it on the odd day.

read more »

The registered-trademark bit bothers me, though, since it probably has nothing to do with the brights movement. Are we impinging on their trademark now? I'm not sure; I don't know anything about trademarks.

• [categories|Dear <Evil Entity>]

Could you please stop using the word "proof" or "prove"¹ in non-mathematical contexts? It makes me slightly pissy, leading some, such as Jake Kohut, to call me an "asshole" (so that's what Jesus would do!). Thank you for remembering the kittens.

¹As in these quotes from notorious kitten-killers:

• "How would you PROVE evolution?" -- Jeff Haden on Seek42, the forum responsible for the deaths of 151,232 kittens and counting
• "the Bible IS proof of God's existence" -- Jake Kohut on Facebook
• "It only takes one proof of a young earth to decide between CREATION and EVOLUTION." -- Kent Hovind
• "Rather, an effect of the metamorphosis of an unconverted mind to a heart renewed is the ability to prove what is the good and perfect will of God" -- BibleStudy.org
• "The mathematical analysis of the scientific proof of God begins with the discovery that the XYZt of real space cause the ENPg of Psychometry space." -- George Hammond

You can't make this stuff up.

• [categories|LOL Patrol]

Here's an actual quote from a textbook by BJ University titled Precalculus for Christian Schools:

If you are given the length of two sides and the angle measure opposite one of those sides, you can also use the law of sines to solve the triangle. However, this combination of information does not always determine a unique triangle. [...] Because [of this], it is called the ambiguous case. Ambiguous means open to multiple interpretations. Some people say that you can interpret the Bible in any way that you want. However, there is no ambiguity in the Bible.

I never thought I'd say this, but: LOL.

• [categories|Marching Morons]

Please, please tell me this is a joke:

Thursday, April 27, 2006, clergy from around the Washington, DC and MD area will gather in downtown DC to pray for the lowering of gas prices.

• [categories|Marching Morons]

Nothing warms my heart like idiots (such as Hannity and Colmes) duking it out with idiots (such as Shirley Phelps Roper); it's so efficient, like vermin killing vermin. Brent Rasmussen has the video from Fox News.

... because there's nothing better than not having to use Microsoft Word.

—Peter Seibel

Language	Example
AFT	I love [Google (http://www.google.com/)].
APT	I love {{{http://www.google.com/}Google}}.
AsciiDoc	I love http://www.google.com/[Google].
BBCode	I love [url=http://www.google.com/]Google[/url].
BHL	I love [[http://www.google.com/][Google]].
BlogMe	I love [HREF http://www.google.com/ Google].
CanonML	I love [::a [:: [::href http://www.google.com/]] Google].
Confluence	I love [Google|http://www.google.com/].
Deplate	I love [[http://www.google.com/][Google]].
DocBook	I love <ulink url="http://www.google.com/">Google</ulink>.
EtText	I love [[Google]]. [Google]: http://www.google.com/
Exscribe	I love ,(ref :url "http://www.google.com/" "Google").
GELLMU	I love \anch[href="http://www.google.com/"]{Google}.
Gigamonkeys	I love \link{\href{http://www.google.com/}\text{Google}}.
Grutatxt	I love http://www.google.com/ (Google).
GuideML	I love <link href="http://www.google.com/">Google</link>.
HTML	I love <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a>.
KwickXML	I love <url href="http://www.google.com/">Google</url>.
LaTeX	I love \href{http://www.google.com/}{Google}.
Latte	I love {\a \href=http://www.google.com/ Google}.
LinuxDoc	I love <url url="http://www.google.com/" name="Google">.
LML	I love ,(a :href "http://www.google.com/" "Google").
Markdown	I love [Google](http://www.google.com/).
markup	I love {link http://www.google.com/ Google}.
No-Tags Markup	I love ^Google, http://www.google.com/^.
RDoc	I love [[http://www.google.com/ Google]].
reStructuredText	I love Google_. .. _Google: http://www.google.com/
Scribe	I love @URLref(url="http://www.google.com/", text="Google").
SDF	I love {{A[jump="http://www.google.com/"] Google}}.
Setext	I love Google_. ^.. _Google http://www.google.com/
Skribe	I love ,(ref :url "http://www.google.com/" :text "Google").
SmartHTML	I love @url{http://www.google.com/, Google}.
Syntext	I love (:a http://www.google.com/ Google).
Texinfo	I love @uref{http://www.google.com/, Google}.
Textile	I love "Google":http://www.google.com/.
thread	I love \link[http://www.google.com/][Google].
TML	I love <a :href "http://www.google.com/"|Google>.
TML	I love @(http://www.google.com/, Google).
UTD	I love {Ref(url:http://www.google.com/) Google}.
Wikipedia	I love [http://www.google.com/ Google].
XBlurb	I love {LX http://www.google.com/ Google}.
YODL	I love url(Google)(http://www.google.com/).

• [categories|Brutal Truth Industries]

Like me, Kristine Harley is tired of all those "progressive Christians" who spend their time attacking brights instead of their fundie-nut-case brethren they should be going after:

Anytime these Christian apologists like Harries want to start policing their own and criticize the Christian fundamentalists with the fake Ph.D.s, instead of picking on Dennett and Dawkins for criticizing the fake Ph.D. fundies, then I'll likewise stop lumping fundamentalists in with the rest of Christianity. Until then, Harries, I'm with Dawkins and Dennett. People ask why more Muslims don't criticize Osama Bin Laden. Why didn't Harries use this opportunity to criticize Ted Haggard and the anti-Choice movement instead of, once again, Richard Dawkins?

Good question. Of course, I see plenty of fundies attacking each other, but the "moderates" are often strangely silent, except when Christianity itself is questioned: then they're just as loud and obnoxious as the fundies, which is why few brights take them seriously. Hauerwas is a classic example of this; he behaves as if all Christians are as "reasonable" as he imagines himself to be, and the only real problem is the brights. This is why people like Dawkins and Dennett are so wary about cooperating with self-described "liberal" Christians: such people tend to be too soft on fundamentalism to be truly helpful to our cause, even if they're sympathetic to brights. I advise ignoring them until they grow some guts.

Bonus: Kristine's site links to the Creationism Cards, which I hadn't seen before. "Now you can have all the fun of Dover in your own home."

• [groups|Rolla]
• [categories|Dear <Evil Entity>]

You really know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when you think you're being persecuted by a fictional book. Last night I saw The Ring Two, which I loved¹; if I was like these babies crying about The Davinci Code, I'd file a complaint that this movie is spreading lies (lies!) to the effect that a creepy dead girl can kill people with her mind. I don't do that, and I doubt that any bright would. The fact that you're doing it only reinforces the stereotype of Christians as incessantly squawking tight-asses who can tolerate no criticism (as if the Galileo thing wasn't damning enough).

Then there's the dreaded Gospel of Judas, from which Christianity is "under attack" (sayeth Rolla's resident dumbass Ed Rothenberger, of Grace Baptist Fellowship). It seems to me that you've gotten pretty good at sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "La la la" whenever someone mentions the Gospel of Thomas; why not continue this grand tradition indefinitely? I don't see the problem here. Just keep doing what you do best, namely, staying ignorant and arrogant.

¹I'm not sure why so many people (especially "ringers") thought this movie sucked. They say it's not scary; I hate to break it to you, but the first one isn't scary either. What makes the Ring movies good is the surreal beauty and engaging (albeit confusing) story. Then it's said that Two leaned too much on music and CGI, but I thought the use thereof was quite tasteful. Finally, one review complained about the lack of nudity, while another was deeply offended by Rachel's quotable line, "I'm not your fucking mommy"; it just goes to show that you can't please everybody. Doubtless the movie has flaws, but I didn't notice them, because I was too busy enjoying it -- especially the ending, which kicks the first movie's ass. Perhaps these people should lighten up a bit. Then again, I loved The Village, too; maybe there's something wrong with me.