HOWTO Screw Some Evangelist Maggots Right In The Wallet

August 25th, 2006 | researchmaterial

Jhayne Holmes says this:

What with the Washington State Supreme Court handing down its anti-gay-marriage decision several weeks ago and the ever-hearing more about attacks on reproductive rights down south, I’m feeling that the States is tripping a bit too merrily down the Handmaid’s path.

This week, I found a way to strike back.

Focus on the Family, the horrid anti-gay evangelical church based in Colorado Springs that wields too much power for anyone’s good, has a store on their website that will give you books, CDs, and DVDs absolutely free of charge. Usually people pay for their items by donation, raising millions of dollars to help Focus on the Family produce more hate-propaganda featuring “experts” on homosexuality who claim it’s a curable “sickness”. (They’re practically defined by their book A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Course, there’s no mention of having less kids, which is the only proven method. No, no, you shouldn’t use birth control, that would be wrong. They need more worshippers, how dare you prevent god’s will.)

It’s a little bit time-consuming, but not enough to deter me. (Nor should it you). The chance to take money out of their pockets is too useful, not to mention satisfying.

Here’s how to do it in 10 steps:

1. Go to www.family.org and look for the “Resources” link in the blue bar on the left-hand side, right above the “Search” box, and click it.

2. Under the “Resource Category” menu on the left-hand side, you’ll notice categories such as “Homosexuality” under “Resource Category.” Me, I went straight to the CD’s and DVD’s under “Resource Format.”

3. Go through, find something you like, such as the recently released movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Chronicles of Narnia Radio Theatre Complete Set, suggested donation US $79.00, or the three disc Les Misérables soundtrack. It’s not a very wide range of products, but there’s bound to be something either you like or you could use as a sweet gift for someone else. Click the “Add to Cart” button.

They won’t send more than $100 worth of materials for free in any given shopping trip, so be sure to go through a few times, until you’re sure you’ve dinged them.

4. Select “Add New Shipping Address,” decide to send it yourself or someone else, and once you’re done picking up to $100, click “Proceed to Checkout.” Some people have been sending items to themselves to sell later on eBay, some have been ordering the more controversial items as conversation pieces or educational props, (as anti-anti-propaganda), but I plan on using mine as gifts, mostly. I’ve found no reports on receiving Focus on the Family junk mail after inputting an address, so I figure it’s fairly safe.

5. The next screen asks you to sign-up for an account and give your information. Fill it out with fictitious information, enter whatever name and address you like. You might want to make up a phone number too and an e-mail account too. After filling out all the required fields, click “Proceed to Checkout” one more time.

6. This will take you to the “Here is Your Cart” page. You may have to re-enter your data again after this part to actually confirm your account. Eventually, you’ll get to the “How Much Would You Like to Donate?” page.

7. Select “Enter other total amount” and enter 0.00 as the amount you would like to pay. (Don’t put in a dollar sign or it will ask you for credit-card information.) Don’t be fooled by the field in the lower-right-hand corner that shows you the suggested donation amounts, simply Proceed to Checkout.

8. The next screen is a guilt screen, to make you feel bad about how little you donated. ignore it. Ignore it utterly. Think of how many people they’re persecuted and had in their “gay kids can be cured” camps. Just proceed to checkout again.

9. Click “Checkout Now.”

10. Finally, pass this information on to all your friends. They’ve got money to back them, we have word of mouth, let’s see if we can win.

8 Responses to “HOWTO Screw Some Evangelist Maggots Right In The Wallet”

  1. [...] not that that’s really saying much, but still… awesome. [...]

  2. Fuck Right Wing Evangelism RIght Up…

    http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=3007

    Jhayne Holmes says this:

    What wi……

  3. [...] Hey, wanna score some free shit and fuck over some hatemongering bastards in the process? Here’s how! Spread the word to all your friends. [...]

  4. [...] andreas04: close to attraction [...]

  5. [...] I suggest this method. [...]

  6. [...] HOWTO Screw Some Evangelist Maggots Right In The Wallet [...]

  7. [...] From Warren Ellis can see what you are doing: Jhayne Holmes says this: [...]

  8. [...] Unfortunately, ever since Warren Ellis posted the instructions on his site (where I got this little piece of information), his horde of fans have been visiting the site trying to bankrupt them by making bogus orders until it shut down. [...]

Complete Plan B Archive

Kieron Gillen - 09 Feb 10

The whole run of Plan B magazine has been released as a single 670Mb PDF. That’s 46 issues of some of the finest music writing of the decade. And a lot of posturing pretentiousness too. It’s like two of my favourite things for the price of one. Or none, as it’s a free PDF.

If you’ve any interest in music in the 00s, or music full stop, this is a great thing to just have on file. You’ll discover a new band every time you browse it.

Hell, it’s even worth getting if you’re one of the games journalist sorts. For the first 10-20 issues or so, I was doing games stuff for it. And Quinns and Mathew Kumar too, who I bullied into contributing. Very much written for the non-gamer about games which get pretty much no coverage, we had fun trying to decode the concept of Outsider Games.

Whole thing here. Go gets!

Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.

Coilhouse - 08 Feb 10

Back around the time of Issue 03, we launched the Small Business Advertising Program to create affordable ad space for indie companies in the print version of Coilhouse. By the time Issue 04 rolled around, the number of advertisers had grown significantly – by this time, we had record labels, jewelry and clothing designers, sculptors, other magazines, web hosts, toy makers and graphic designers advertising in our pages. Click here to see them all. With editorial duties taking up more and more of our time as the weeks go by, the moment has come for us to seek help with the advertising side of running the magazine. We’re looking to hire an Ad Manager for our Small Business Advertising Program, starting with Coilhouse Magazine #05… and possibly subsequent issues.

Full details after the jump!


Read the rest of Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.


Post tags: Coilhouse

Untitled Post

blissblog - 08 Feb 10

Untitled Post

blissblog - 08 Feb 10

Untitled Post

blissblog - 08 Feb 10

State of South Carolina Secretary of State Subversive Agent Form

jwz - 08 Feb 10

Check the appropriate box. Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof?
[ ] YES [ ] NO

If yes, please outline the fundamental beliefs. If applicable, attach a copy of the bylaws or minutes of meetings from the last year.

"Inflection Points" Presentation

Open The Future - 08 Feb 10

For those folks who are interested, here's the Slideshare version of the presentation I gave last week at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute annual meeting. I was asked to talk about foresight thinking, as the event theme was "The Big One of 2056: What Went Right?" a look at a fictional 7.8 quake in the SF region that was handled as well as they could imagine possible.

My goal was to offer a bit of reassurance to the audience that there is some real utility to thinking about the future, and to spell out (in a cursory way) the kinds of big picture issues they should keep in mind while looking ahead forty-six years.

By and large, it was a successful talk. The post-talk questions were engaged, with little push-back, and I'm told that the overall response from the audience was quite positive.

The talk was video recorded, and I'm told will eventually be available to the public. I'll link when that happens.

CAN GIFTING ECONOMIES SCALE?

John Robb - 08 Feb 10

A gifting economy is different from a barter or market economy in that valuable items are given away to those that need them, without any quid pro quo, exchange, or payment.  Gifting economics (lots of great papers on this topic) were/are the economic heartbeat of hunter-gatherer tribal cultures, the social organization where we spent 99% of our time as homo sapiens sapiens.  Barter was, in contrast, a mechanism for economic interactions between tribes.  

This gifting economic system wasn't based on pure altruism.  It did have an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the system over the longer term.  On the positive side, there was an intangible increase in the social status (using personal or societal metrics) of a tribal member that gifted an item.  On the negative, a failure to offer hospitality or gifts to those in need was considered a mortal slight that could incite violence or expulsion from the tribe.

There were also a considerable number of drivers for gifting at the tribal level.  Here are some:

  • The survival of the tribe, as a group, was more important than the survival of any individual.  However, the loss of any individual could put the tribe at risk.
  • The generation of surplus and innovation was highly uncertain.  Sharing reduced that uncertainty to manageable levels.
  • Sharing reduced internal friction that could put the tribe at risk.

Scalability

It's pretty clear that the societal drivers of tribal gifting economics and the mechanisms of enforcement didn't survive the transition to a global social system composed of billions of members.   Simply, the connections between any two individuals (outside of immediate familial relationships) are too abstract for these drivers and enforcement mechanisms to be relevant.   As a result, market based mechanisms for economic interaction have gained dominance.

However, the ongoing shift of the global market-based economy from a trade in rival goods (tangible items that invoke zero sum economics) to digital non-rival goods (items that can be copied at no expense or diminishment, endlessly) provides a window of opportunity.  It may be possible to revive gifting economics for non-rival goods to amazing beneficial effect.   Some ideas on how this could scale:

  • Automated reputation metrics that enhance social status based on contributions.
  • Mechanisms built using MMO gaming as a way to tie successful gifting to status improvement (leveling) or an ability to attract investment.
  • The creation of an inside/outside barrier that separates a gifting economy from the global economic mainstream.   Automated mutual interdependence (see my friend Bruce Sterling's absolutely brilliant story on this:  "Maneki Neko").

Latest on SNOW

Jean Snow - 08 Feb 10

Latest on SNOW

So what’s the latest on SNOW? I guess two new developments art that I added a dedicated Twitter feed, and also created a Facebook fan page. The Twitter feed is mostly just automated with new articles from the site — because some people actually prefer that over RSS feeds these days — but I do keep an eye on it, and will reply to questions and comments. The Facebook page is just another way of putting the site out there, and should be a good way of informing members of SNOW-related events as they happen.

Regular content updates have also continued over the past week, with a few new guest columns and my regular news items. Here’s a list of what you may have missed over the past few days.

Untitled Post

blissblog - 08 Feb 10