Kentucky’s Governor Is a Flaming Idiot

There are many ways to be stupid, but today we have an account of a truly spectacular public display of world-class stupidity. And more. Much more. Stick around.

Steve Beshear is the Governor of Kentucky. In the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky we read Beshear to announce ‘Ark Encounter’ theme park to be developed by N. Kentucky Creation Museum.

Note: That story’s been pulled and a different one was substituted in its place. Our humble blog may be the only record of the original story. Here are some excerpts from the now vanished story, with bold added by us:

Gov. Steve Beshear and Answers in Genesis, which operates the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky, will unveil plans Wednesday for a creationism-themed amusement park.

Good lord! This guy is the Governor, and he’s working with Ken Ham‘s Answers in Genesis (AIG) and the mind-boggling Creation Museum.

The paper says the new theme park will be called Ark Encounter, with a full-scale wooden ark, a museum, and other facilities. They estimate the place will attract 1.6 million visitors a year, and it’ll cost $24.5 million to build the place.

One last excerpt:

Joining Beshear [at the plan unveiling] will be Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, and Grant County Judge-Executive Darrell Link.

These things speak for themselves. Kentuckians can be proud!

Whoa! Just as we were about to publish, we checked our links for the last time. The newspaper pulled the story we had written about and at the same link they have a new story with this headline: Proposed creationism theme park to seek tax incentives from Kentucky. Maybe the original story was too embarrassing for the Governor. The new story says:

Operators of the popular Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky are seeking state tax incentives to build a creationism theme park at a nearby site — a project that Gov. Steve Beshear officially will announce Wednesday.

If the people of Kentucky are willing to elect a full-blown creationist moron like Beshear, they ought to be willing to shell out for Noah’s Ark. What else does the new story say?

Beshear spokeswoman Kerri Richardson declined to answer questions Tuesday about possible incentives for the project.

We’re guessing, but she’s probably the one who had the original story spiked. If so, she’s hoping that the story was killed in time. Sorry, Kerri, but your humble Curmudgeon noticed it. You should have acted sooner.

Anyway, here’s what’s going on behind closed doors:

The developers are seeking incentives under the Kentucky Tourism Development Act, which allows up to 25 percent of the cost of a project to be recovered.

Under the law, the state each year returns to developers of approved projects the sales tax paid by visitors on admission tickets, food, gift sales and lodging costs. Developers have 10 years to reach the 25 percent threshold.

Good deal! Hambo gets to collect sales taxes, and then the state lets him keep them until he’s recovered 25% of his development costs.

There’s a lot going on here. Tax incentives, political connections, pulled press stories, and Noah’s Ark too. We’ll stand by our original title: Kentucky’s Governor is a flaming idiot.

Update: See Ken Ham Announces Noah’s Ark Theme Park.

Update: See Editorial Opposes Gov. Beshear & Noah’s Ark.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Kent Hovind Seeks Prison Release

You know who Kent Hovind is. The last time we discussed Hovind’s legal situation was in this post, WorldNetDaily: Kent Hovind Is A Martyr.

Hovind’s “science” is cited in Jack Chick’s Big Daddy? and his “doctorate” is from a diploma mill named Patriot University (they’re so proud of Hovind they have a page about him). Alas, this courageous creationist crusader is currently incarcerated in a federal prison for tax evasion.

Now that you’re up-to-date on Hovind, we present some excerpts from ‘Dr. Dino’ wants sentence tossed, which appears in the Pensacola News Journal of Pensacola, Florida, where Hovind’s dinosaur theme park had been located.

That newspaper doesn’t object to links, but they don’t want people copying their material. No problem; we’ll paraphrase what’s going on.

Hovind has filed some kind of motion in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Florida (the court which convicted him) seeking to have his sentence vacated. He claims that both the prosecution and his court-appointed attorney committed errors at his trial.

We haven’t seen the motion, but we’d be surprised if he’s raising any issues that weren’t already considered and shot down in his failed appeal. You can read that opinion here: Appellate decision of 30 December 2008 (18-page pdf file).

What else do we find in the Pensacola News Journal? There’s no hearing date set yet for Hovind’s motion. And we’re reminded that the great creationist is languishing in the Jesup Federal Correction Institution in south Georgia.

Hovind’s wife — who had been his bookkeeper — was also convicted of tax evasion (or conspiracy, or something), but she was sentenced to only one year and she’s already been released. Poor ol’ Kent was sentenced to 10 years — and all he ever did was preach creationism and refuse to pay taxes. It’s a cruel world!

That’s all we know at the moment. But there will undoubtedly be more news about Hovind. Even in the slammer, he’s still good blogging material.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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WorldNetDaily: Ray Comfort on Atheism

The jolly logo adorning this post is in honor of WorldNetDaily (WND), the journalistic organ that won our Buffoon Award and that constantly confirms the soundness of that decision.

Today’s article in WND is special, because it’s about Ray Comfort, one of history’s all-time flamingest creationists. WND admires Comfort greatly; they regard him as one of the world’s greatest living thinkers. The last time they featured him we wrote WorldNetDaily & Ray Comfort v. Dawkins & Einstein.

It’s always a pleasure to read about Comfort in the pages of WND, and so we are delighted to present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from Evangelist thanks atheists for anti-Christmas billboard. The bold font was added by us:

One of the nation’s most popular evangelists is “thanking” the American Atheists group for spending $20,000 on a prominent and highly controversial billboard near the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel leading to Manhattan.

Ray Comfort says the atheists have caused people to reason, think and talk about Christmas.

There’s a picture of the billboard at the WND website, but you don’t need to click over there to check it out. This is WND’s description:

The billboard depicts a silhouette of the Three Wise Men approaching a manger alongside the words: “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!” The atheists say the billboard is meant to encourage fellow disbelievers going through the motions of celebrating Christmas to stop. The billboard is also meant to “attack the myth that Christianity owns the solstice season” and to “raise the awareness of the organization and the movement,” according to a statement on the group’s website.

The group is American Atheists, Inc. Here’s their page with a pic of the billboard. We don’t really care what they say, but it’s fun to see WND and Ray Comfort all worked up. Let’s continue with the WND article, as they quote Ray Comfort:

“American Atheists, Inc., (God bless them) are very generous people,” said Comfort in response. “In April of 2001, they flew me 3,000 miles from California to Florida, to speak at their annual convention. They kindly put me in a luxury hotel, gave me a large fruit basket, let me preach the entire gospel, and also allowed me to make my books available to their people. So let’s support their efforts, and pray that people who see their signs asking them to ‘reason’ rather than just accept things in blind faith.”

There’s something wrong with that last sentence, but it’s from Comfort so let’s not worry about it. Here’s more:

“America needs to go further than just having a belief about God,” he said. “It needs to repent and trust the Savior, then they will come to know God. That’s how to find everlasting life. ‘Reason’ is a good thing. God Himself says that to this sinful world: ‘Come now, and let us reason together.’”

And then Comfort shows us just how well he can reason:

It is atheism that is based on fairy tales and myth, he says – notions like evolution.

Gotta love the guy. Here comes the article’s end, and you’ll need to study it carefully to see just how clever Ray Comfort really is:

“To believe that nothing created everything is to lack that necessary ‘reason’ of which American Atheists speak,” said Comfort, who suggests a new slogan for believers: “Atheistic evolution: You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!”

That says it all, and we can’t add a thing.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Self-published Genius Challenges Darwin’s Theory

A press release announces the availability of a self-published assault on the theory of evolution: Two New Publications Differ on How Evolution Could Help the Humanities

The first of those “new publications” seems to be a legitimate publication that apparently has nothing to do with what’s being promoted by this press release. Our impression is that it’s mentioned only give the appearance that the new self-published work is part of a trend. Therefore we’ll confine our attention to the real subject of this press release. Here are some excerpts, with bold added by us:

“Take On Darwin” is the fifth “book” published by science writer and web publisher Shaun Johnston under the imprint Evolved Self Publishing.

“Shaun”? This guy doesn’t even know how to spell his own name. We Googled for him, but found only references to someone in the movie industry. That doesn’t seem like the same man. Let’s read on:

It’s a “book” in the form of a website, http://www.takeondarwin.com, that readers update with their own contributions. Each of the site’s pages consists of a document to the left, with space for readers’ contributions to the right.

We haven’t bothered to visit that link. The press release continues:

Johnston invites the reader to travel back in time to when evolution was first discovered, before Charles Darwin arrived at his theory of natural selection, and come up with new theories better suited to the humanities. On the site’s home page he points out that almost all the early pioneers in evolutionary theory were humanities-trained (except, notably, for Lamarck).

Go for it, dear reader. If you’re not happy with the theory of evolution, then start all over and find something “better suited to the humanities.” Yes — that’s how science should be done!

Hey, your Curmudgeon has one already: Maybe we evolved so that we could take advantage of bathroom fixtures. You don’t like that one? Well, it was our first effort. Here’s more from the press release:

To get the ball rolling Johnston offers an update on Lamarck’s theory — the genome itself evolved to become intelligent, and that intelligence can literally think the specifications for new species back into its “brain,” creatures’ genes. Eventually it “thought” intelligence and conscious volition into us.

An intelligent genome! Why didn’t we think of that? At last, the intelligent designer has competition! Here’s the rest of it:

“For the humanities, coming up with new theories of evolution isn’t rocket science,” says Johnston, “nor need it involve creationism. It’s figuring out how creatures like us, with conscious free will, could have evolved.”

This is a great new intellectual endeavor. Good luck, “Shaun.” Your Curmudgeon salutes you.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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