Dawkins coup de grâce in Oklahoma

yorumsuz

AWESOME! Too bad OSU can't say the same for te 60G given to Ben Stein...

#1 - Abbie - Good post as usual - Dawkins is thwe best in my book.

#2 - Feral - Holy Shit??!!WTF?? Tell me more! Please? You got decimal in teh wring spot right?

Jim Hawkings versus Stephen Hawking -- A veritable island of treasure found while hunting cranks.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

I was told by a professor that I consider a well informed guy that his fee at OSU was $60,000. He was sponsored by the Undergraduate Student Body's Speakers Bureau and spoke to a packed house at $5 per seat to all non-students (students were free) last fall at OSU two days before Expelled was released on DVD.

It was totally pointless - a conservative rant about how to ruin your life which included not working hard, never getting a job, starting a war, and acting like Chuck Norris. Someone literally asked him could he say "Bueller" as one of the questions - which were collected on paper five minutes into the talk and screened leaving Stein unaccountable for anything he said in the lecture.

The figure was thrown around in the student paper before the talk - here is one of the electronic links with the figure post talk - I couldn't locate others. http://ocolly.com/2008/10/27/ben-stein-to-speak-at-wes-watkins-cente/

J-Dog FOUND IT!

http://ocolly.com/2008/09/24/ben-stein-returns-to-osu-no-you-still-can%…

"Stein, who identifies as a conservative, was chosen not because of his political beliefs, Ensley said.

Instead, he was available for the date and charges about $60,000, which was less in comparison with other speakers the board members were looking into, Ensley said."

FANTASTIC find, Feral Akodon!

$60K for 'cracked jokes about the University of Oklahoma and President Bill Clinton, commended the U.S. military, recited lines from âFerris Buellerâs Day Off,â spoke of his professional and personal relationship with President Richard Nixon, gave his views on the Patriot Act and even said he favored Tupac Shakur over Biggie Smalls' is A-OK with 'Oklahoma tax payers'.

$30K for a free presentation, open to the public, by one the worlds most famous living scientists, NOOOOOOOOO!! Must write legislation banning him from the state and launch a congressional investigation into who/where the finances went! TAXPAYERS! TAXPAYERS!!

Thank you, Feral!

Yes indeed, a great find. What can Thomsen say when he finds this info about OSU? Who will call his office and let them know? Thomsen and his Krazy Kern Krew have, in my humble opinion, really stepped in some cow hockey!

Wow, another creationist "own goal". They should know better by now! Actually, they know it doesn't matter. Just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. First it's the flagellum... nope. Then it's the mouse trap... nooope. Then it's the blood clotting thingy... nooooooppe. Oh well...

I love how you eschew apostrophes but not circumflexes.

Would you give coup d'état its apostrophe or not? :^p

I don't normally post comments to just say something is awesome. This is an exception. Richard Dawkins rocks. Fuck yeah.

How cheap was doctor duhctor ... YAY! I can't recall his name! The plagiarator?

So you support simplifed spelling in English, but not in French? How liberal.

Sili@11

Do you mean Dr. "Complex stuff is really complex" Dembski?

I did.

Pardon me if I don't thank you for reminding me of his name.

Hell, Id bet a bottle of single malt scotch these twats couldnt name someone other than 'Dawkins', 'Einstein' or maybe 'Steven Hawkings' *rolleyes*.

Don't forget Galileo, who's Just Like Them, challenging the Monolithic Beliefs of the Establishment*.

*Let's ignore for the moment that Galileo was RIGHT and had actual EVIDENCE ...

The French spelling is at least graphemic: once you have the written form of a word, there's only one way to pronounce it (with exceptions limited to personal and place names and a couple of little words like eu). English doesn't even manage that.

That said, most French speakers don't distinguish a from â in pronunciation anymore.

Pardon me if I don't thank you for reminding me of his name.

Priceless.

F*CK them. This pissed me off to no end.

So Ben charges 60,000 a pop? Do you get the quote mines for free along with that or do you need to pay extra?

My sixth-form teached did say I had a nice pronunciation in French. Pity I didn't know what I was saying so that I could get the intonation right (aside from skipping to the end and seeing if it was supposed to be rising).

But then again - my English is typically Danish in it's flatness, so I'd likely do severe violence to French ears if I tried speaking French.

Ah well.

Is there any particular reason you see Dawkypoo as an ostrich (first try: ostridge) farmer? Stereotypically it's more of a creationist animal. Personally I'd love to see him with a ferret or three.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

-Voltaire

I have it from a good source that Dr. Dawkins turned down any/all money for his Minneapolis trip as well. No honorarium, no airfare, no hotel.

100% class.

I understand from www.cafepress.com/RICHARD_D that RD likes puppies too. Check out the dog bowls.

Go Doctor D, has the person whom I unfortunately share a name with trumped up with the 100k though?

That's pretty funny :-)

While I would like to think we are special, Dawkins usually waives his honorarium when speaking in a University setting.

He waives it in lots of other settings as well. My understanding is that by designating a fixed honorarium and waiving, he may acknowledge a personal donation-in-kind to the institution with a determinable value.

It is a sort of tax genius.

(Penn Jillette and I discussed the JREF structure and James Randi a few years ago and it is similar)

Deduct the speaking fees you have donated from the tax burden imposed on your book sales while promoting, by your appearance, book sales. Designate a percentage of sales to your own non-profit foundation. Make a tidy living while making the minimal obligatory contribution to Old Blighty which will turn around and use it to shore up the collapsing Church of England and build statues of Maggie Thatcher.

The result is an enormous amount of money you have absolute power over and a very nice personal income.

Besides, he's British, what are his needs? A nice bit of cheese? A crone to do the washing up while Lalla is busy with her sewing? Unlimited sweaters?

You had hinted that you knew how much he was getting paid. I had a feeling that it was nothing. Dawkins has said before that he usually refuses to be paid when speaking to students.

Then there is all the tax stuff that Prometheus is talking about too.

On an irrelevant but interesting note, you all may like this.

Dave Scot just got banned from UD. Also noted here.

Feral Akodon @ #4 - nice! That's cheered me up immensely. I look forward to some OK residents using this to publicly demonstrate the embarrassing levels of fail in their state legislature.

Totally off topic: old friend-of-the-blog John 'Cuckoo' Kwok has earned himself a nomination in Pharyngula's first public troll eviction vote. Regulars may want to try counting the number of Kwokisms in this highly amusing comment.

I should add that I didn't vote for him as there are some fairly despicable characters also nominated, but seeing Kwok among them is certainly cause for lulz.

I doubt the tax angle described by Prometheus is correct. If Dawkins is liable for UK taxes (as am I), any charitable donation ascribed to a foreign entity (such as a US university or charity or whatever) would unlikely qualify as a deduction against UK income. A US taxpayer's donation to my academic department in the UK would similarly attract no benefit in the US tax system (which I am, alas, also familiar with).

More likely is that Dawkins is simply foregoing payment as an altruistic gesture. In the long run, it may promote the dispersion and survival of his scientific genes, however.

Dawkins, as an individual, is liable for taxes in the UK, the USA, the AU and anywhere else that imposes an income tax and where he generates income. U.S. donations to 501-C 3 institutions are deductible as against income from U.S. sales, just as donations to U.K. Charity Commission registrants or other entities may be used as an offset to UK sales. Of course it helps if someone has the brains to register for both. to wit:

http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/foundation,donations