A Series of Tubes

So Prop 8, the amending of the state constitution to make same sex marriage illegal, is most likely going to pass and there have been various responses.  There have been protest marches in LA and San Francisco and these marches have spread throughout California.

Prop 8 has not been officially certified, but counting the absentee ballots does not look like it will overturn the current support for the proposition.  Opponents of prop 8 are already filing legal challenges should prop 8 pass.  It looks like the city council in Santa Cruz will join the fight against prop 8.

Some organizers are attempting a boycott of pro prop 8 businesses.

My favorite response is organizing people to file complaints to the IRS to revoke the Mormon church’s tax exempt status.  The Mormon Church was instrumental in funding the yes on 8 campaign, including Internet ads that I saw show up on this blog.  Their support of prop 8 is why they have been specifically targeted in protests in Oakland and other areas.  The definition of a 501c3, a tax exempt organization such as a church, states that: “no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation”.  It is this portion of the 501c3 definition that the Mormon church has allegedly violated.

The theory is that if enough people complain, the church will have to start paying taxes because they are operating as a lobbying firm and not as a church.  I think I’ll spend part of my afternoon filing some papers with the IRS.  Check out http://lds501c3.wordpress.com/ if you have some time.

I saw this video and found it entertaining (combines Scientology and farting). I don’t think that a scientologist would simply sit there and admit to their insane beliefs but anything is possible in fiction. Having someone lay out the whole belief system is rather entertaining. Anyhow, enjoy the video:

So after talking about Chiropractic care I realized that I was getting a ton of ads for chiropractors. The thing is that my reader base is probably less likely to click on ads to go get a chiropractor after I just discussed how chiropractors have a shady history and use pseudoscientific instruments to give them the illusion of technical and scientific knowledge. The only way someone would click on one of those ads is if the ads were for pirate chiropractors (come on google… show me some pirate chiropractor ads). “Yar! Yer spine be like the captain’s hook.”

The thing is that I’ve made various unflattering statements about many groups. One of these days I’m going to need something from a jehovah’s witness chiropractor who is married to a mormon that really likes homeopathy. That would be karma. Of course I don’t believe in karma either. And naturally I’m now thinking of a post that I could write about karma. I wonder if I would get ads on how to get better karma. I’m sure someone has written a book about it.

I need to make sure that my next post is about something that I like. That way the google ad gravy train makes its next stop right here on my blog.

So in my previous post I mentioned the numerous books that I recently came across about Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Below is a picture from the book Jehovah’s Witnesses:  Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom.  It is a picture of the governing body of the Jehovah’s witnesses as of January 1992.

The first thing I noticed is that Milton looks an awful lot like Jean Luc Picard.  For comparison see the photo below: Read more

So on my way home I noticed a box of books that someone had put on the curb to give or throw away.  I had a free minute and decided to take a gander at these free offerings, and boy am I glad that I did.  I should have just tried to take the whole box, but instead I simply carried about 20 books back with me and almost dropped them going up the stairs because I didn’t have a bag or anything to put them in.  I was extremely excited when I got home and couldn’t decide which one to read first because every single book in the box was literature for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Now most people would probably know Jehovah’s witnesses as a group that refuses blood transfusions because they have a literal view of Leviticus or perhaps as one of the religious groups that comes to your house and tries to talk to you about god (another major one is the Mormons but I already have a post about them).  I didn’t know a whole lot about Jehovah’s witnesses and the books in the pile had some captivating titles.  There is a ton of stuff to write about here including a book called Life-How did it get here? By evolution or by creation?, but for now I want to talk about one of the greatest books in the treasure trove of books that I found, Reasoning from the Scriptures.

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There is an interesting article at the Wall Street Journal about Mormonism. It basically talks about how Mitt Romney’s presidential bid created a resurgent interest in Mormonism and how most of that interest was not of the positive variety. Here is a graphic from the article that highlights that sentiment:

I had read up on Mormonism a while back and this article made me curious about something. Read more