For Reason and Science?

[lordpasternack]

To be honest - it's perfectly possible that the British media just hasn't caught wind of it, yet. Either that, or they're lying low and hacking phones, to get more juice out of the story.

[lordpasternack]

I donated to NBGA 2011/2012. Can I have my money back now please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action

[Brian Peacock]

Together we are strong.

[Calilasseia]

One aspect of this I still find amazing to behold, is that creationists haven't jumped at the opportunity to use the gold-plated ammunition Dawkins appears to be handing to them. It's not as if they're exactly reticent about resorting to dirty tricks, and peddling lies about Dawkins to further their own ideological agenda, so why the likes of Ken Ham haven't taken a peek at this and thought "BINGO!" is something of a puzzle to me. Perhaps DaveDodo's comment about their own misdeeds coming under closer scrutiny is a factor, though given the extent to which creationists have been allowed to escape the consequences of their mischief for so long, I'm tempted to ask again, why hasn't even one creationist launched forth on this?

Let's face it, LP's case doesn't have to be that robust for creationists to run with it, they run with made up shit all the time. Actual evidence of malfeasance within RDF should be a solid gold gift to them. Or perhaps they realise they've poisoned the well of discourse so much, that if they do run with it, they'll destroy any chances of it being taken seriously? Not that this has stopped them in the past, which again leads me to ask, why the great creationist silence on this? After the manner in which creationists were roundly humiliated over the Hovind affair, you'd think they'd jump at the chance to portray Dawkins in the same light.

As much as I admire LP's tenacity on this, and share her concern for the damage likely to be inflicted upon the entire atheist cause, as a result of either incompetence or outright mendacity on RD's part, I'm still somewhat worried about the great creationist silence. Unless the creationists are hiding something so irredeemably evil within their ranks, that any heightened scrutiny in this area scares them shitless ...

[PsychoSerenity]

My guess is the creationists haven't noticed. Most of them will be plenty busy enough attacking what they think they know about atheists without having to look up things that might be true. After all, that's the general creationist response to everything.

As for the press, without an easily reportable single sound bite type scandal, it's too small a story for them to take an active interest in, if they did notice. Much cheaper to make stuff up than investigate.

[DaveDodo007]

One aspect of this I still find amazing to behold, is that creationists haven't jumped at the opportunity to use the gold-plated ammunition Dawkins appears to be handing to them. It's not as if they're exactly reticent about resorting to dirty tricks, and peddling lies about Dawkins to further their own ideological agenda, so why the likes of Ken Ham haven't taken a peek at this and thought "BINGO!" is something of a puzzle to me. Perhaps DaveDodo's comment about their own misdeeds coming under closer scrutiny is a factor, though given the extent to which creationists have been allowed to escape the consequences of their mischief for so long, I'm tempted to ask again, why hasn't even one creationist launched forth on this?

Let's face it, LP's case doesn't have to be that robust for creationists to run with it, they run with made up shit all the time. Actual evidence of malfeasance within RDF should be a solid gold gift to them. Or perhaps they realise they've poisoned the well of discourse so much, that if they do run with it, they'll destroy any chances of it being taken seriously? Not that this has stopped them in the past, which again leads me to ask, why the great creationist silence on this? After the manner in which creationists were roundly humiliated over the Hovind affair, you'd think they'd jump at the chance to portray Dawkins in the same light.

As much as I admire LP's tenacity on this, and share her concern for the damage likely to be inflicted upon the entire atheist cause, as a result of either incompetence or outright mendacity on RD's part, I'm still somewhat worried about the great creationist silence. Unless the creationists are hiding something so irredeemably evil within their ranks, that any heightened scrutiny in this area scares them shitless ...

This part isn't so puzzling, yes they will attack Richard whenever they feel threatened and try to keep the sheep in the flock. I am a member of many religious forums and when ever it is all quiet on the Western (religious) front they like to keep it this way. Even the devout (surprise) don't like anybody hearing that their are different viewpoints out there and will go to any lengths to shield the cash cows from anything other than focusing on Jebus and the collection plate. If atheists are going to fight amongst themselves then so much the better. It is a case of no news is good news. These are not sophisticated people we are dealing with here, it is a case of thank fuck they are quiet at the moment. Seriously I could hand them arguments on a plate aka P Z Myers is a marxo-feminist and wants to build education camps which of cause leads to gulags and it wouldn't work because they would simply believe it and how does that go with their belief that god would protect them.

[Brian Peacock]

My guess is the creationists haven't noticed. Most of them will be plenty busy enough attacking what they think they know about atheists without having to look up things that might be true. After all, that's the general creationist response to everything.

As for the press, without an easily reportable single sound bite type scandal, it's too small a story for them to take an active interest in, if they did notice. Much cheaper to make stuff up than investigate.

Yup, and do creationist really want to get into a dirty media battle about the private lives of their opponents if it means exposing themselves to the same sort of thing?

[lordpasternack]

Just for the record, Brian - setting up a semi-corrupt charitable organisation for the express benefit of another person within the organisation, with whom one has an ongoing sexual relationship, does not get filed under one's "private life".

The fact that people's genitals are involved in the equation does not automatically make it "private". It is a matter of public interest if there is serious conflict of interest and lack of financial scruples within a charity - with or without sex being part of the equation. It's everybody and anybody's business.

Indeed, the IRS takes conflict of interest - especially undeclared conflict of interest - and inurement to personal benefit - very seriously, when it comes to dealing with tax-exempt organisations - and rightly so.

There seems to be this kneejerk from a lot of nice liberal atheists, who feel as though I'm trying to encroach on Dawkins' "free love" or something - that I'm stepping on something "private" and being somehow prudish. They feel the need to tell me that Dawkins is entitled to a sex life.

Indeed, and he's also entitled to a family life - yet he would not be entitled to set up a charitable organisation with the express, corrupt intent to benefit members of his family - and if he did, he could rightly expect to be taken to task if his nepotism came to light, and if conflict of interest was obviously putting a strain on the organisation. And that's what it boils down to.

If Richard Dawkins wanted pampered mistresses who exploit and manipulate him, and systematically harm certain people around him, as part of his private life - he should have done everything reasonable to keep them in his private life.

[Tero]

About what percentage of the RDF funds do they send out to the good causes out there? Compared to salary, phone calls, paperclips, champagne and hanky panky.

[lordpasternack]

About what percentage of the RDF funds do they send out to the good causes out there? Compared to salary, phone calls, paperclips, champagne and hanky panky.

I actually plan to attempt to calculate it, over their entire history. It's difficult to gauge, though, because there will be legitimate expenses mixed in with Cornwell's shopping sprees.

What I can say with confidence is that, coinciding with Cornwell taking the reins, RDF started operating at a loss, spending less on 3rd party donations, and have failed to file their return with the IRS on time for three consecutive years, even with the maximum of two deadline extensions of three months each. That is, for three consecutive years, RDF has taken advantage of deadline extensions giving them 6 months extra time to file - on top of the five months they are automatically allowed by the IRS - and has still failed to file within that timeframe. For three consecutive years, they will have received a delinquency notice for failing to file on time.

The last two returns they've filed were filed just over a year after they were first due - which is a year and five months after the end of the respective fiscal years being reported.

I know this remark probably won't make sense to many of you yet - but, having stated all of this, the only thing I'm left wondering is how Cornwell plans to blame Karen Owens.

[Brian Peacock]

Just for the record, Brian - setting up a semi-corrupt charitable organisation for the express benefit of another person within the organisation, with whom one has an ongoing sexual relationship, does not get filed under one's "private life".

I quite agree - I was just responding to the point about why the Creotards and IDiots hadn't caught on to 'taking it down to the ground' with Dawkins.

I really think this is an issue for The Charity Commission and it's US equivalent to look into. I'm a great fan of Dawkins' science, books, and educational outreach but your article on the apparent missing funds just convinces me that the RDF as an institution is rotten all the way through.

Still, it wouldn't be the first charity set up for the express benefit of its trustees and officials and at the expense of those its donors and those it claims to wish to support.

The fact that people's genitals are involved in the equation does not automatically make it "private". It is a matter of public interest if there is serious conflict of interest and lack of financial scruples within a charity - with or without sex being part of the equation. It's everybody and anybody's business.

Indeed, the IRS takes conflict of interest - especially undeclared conflict of interest - and inurement to personal benefit - very seriously, when it comes to dealing with tax-exempt organisations - and rightly so.

Hehehehehe hehe hehehehehehehehe hehe hehe hehe hehehehe...

hehehehe hehe hehehehehehehe...

hehehe hehe hehe hehe....

You said "genitals"... hehe hehe hehe...

hehehe hehe hehe hehehe hehehe hehe hehe hehe hehe....

There seems to be this kneejerk from a lot of nice liberal atheists, who feel as though I'm trying to encroach on Dawkins' "free love" or something - that I'm stepping on something "private" and being somehow prudish. They feel the need to tell me that Dawkins is entitled to a sex life.

Well this self-declared 'nice liberal atheist' who has donated money is, quite frankly, disappointed in the scope and performance of RDF and its various branches. If we accept one of the Dawks primary points, that reason and freethought should be at the heart of the public debates about what kinds of societies we want to live in, as I do, then to use his reputation and the money it attracts as a means to feather his love nests is something that reflects poorly on the man as it seems to shove the application of reason down the list of the personal and social priorities he's been advocating publicly.

Indeed, and he's also entitled to a family life - yet he would not be entitled to set up a charitable organisation with the express, corrupt intent to benefit members of his family - and if he did, he could rightly expect to be taken to task if his nepotism came to light, and if conflict of interest was obviously putting a strain on the organisation. And that's what it boils down to.

Exactly. Who's he's stumpfing isn't the issue here. That's his business. But if he's using money donated to the charitable venture that bears his name as a personal slush fund then that is just wrong, and if true possibly illegal.

If Richard Dawkins wanted pampered mistresses who exploit and manipulate him, and systematically harm certain people around him, as part of his private life - he should have done everything reasonable to keep them in his private life.

Perhaps he just felt that he deserved a few more orgasms at his time of life.

[lordpasternack]

I really think this is an issue for The Charity Commission and it's US equivalent to look into.

The IRS - which is essentially the US version of Revenue & Customs - deals with tax-exempt organisations in the US. I have researched various issues of (non-)compliance of tax-exempt organisations in the US, and I know that RDF is non-compliant by a number of important measures. The possible misappropriating of NBGA donations simply adds weight to the seriousness of the case - and it's one particular point that I felt deserved public attention.

I still have several loose ends to tie up - but, yes, the IRS will be hearing from me…

(Dawkins probably now wishes that I'd be less difficult, and just blackmail him instead. )

[Brian Peacock]

Could've have been you with a nice tidy flat in the city eh?

[Calilasseia]

Just for the record, Brian - setting up a semi-corrupt charitable organisation for the express benefit of another person within the organisation, with whom one has an ongoing sexual relationship, does not get filed under one's "private life".

Bloody hell, if this is actually what's happening, this gets filed under "criminal fraud".

I've already mentioned at length, in at least one past post, the manner in which the Charity Commissioners here in the UK come down on people like a B-52 Arclight raid for even minor transgressions. As part of the governing body of my Entomology Society, I have to be scrupulous in my dealings whenever even petty cash sums are handled, let alone anything more substantial. If an organisation as small as mine comes in for this sort of attention, you can imagine the amount of shit that would hit the fan, if a UK charity the size of the RDFRS displayed this sort of freewheeling attitude to other people's money.

The fact that people's genitals are involved in the equation does not automatically make it "private".

The moment misappropriated donations are suspected by the relevant authorities, genitals are irrelvant. Except as targets for the size 12 boot that they will deliver to the relevant miscreants.

It is a matter of public interest if there is serious conflict of interest and lack of financial scruples within a charity - with or without sex being part of the equation. It's everybody and anybody's business.

An elementary matter that shouldn't really need explaining.

Indeed, the IRS takes conflict of interest - especially undeclared conflict of interest - and inurement to personal benefit - very seriously, when it comes to dealing with tax-exempt organisations - and rightly so.

See: Kent Hovind.

There seems to be this kneejerk from a lot of nice liberal atheists, who feel as though I'm trying to encroach on Dawkins' "free love" or something - that I'm stepping on something "private" and being somehow prudish. They feel the need to tell me that Dawkins is entitled to a sex life.

Heh, I've been posting about the "political dimension" involved in setting up and running an organisation like this, including the matter of not handing solid gold ammunition to your declared enemies, since 2010, before the question of where Dawkins was hiding his sausage arose. And whilst I'm aware of the notion that we shouldn't be requiring Dawkins to conform to anally retentive fundie "morality", that does not for one moment include endorsing mixing his horizontal jogging activities with financial miscreance. If there is evidence of this latter conjunction, then as you rightly point out, it's not just a matter of public interest, but quite likely law enforcement interest too.

I've been posting on the need to be scrupulous with respect to financial dealings ever since I began my "political dimension" posts, not least because the last thing anyone in Dawkins' position should be doing, is handing bastards like Ken Ham an easy opportunity to put on a puppet show featuring Dawkins as a sort of atheist Kent Hovind. Sexual hoo-ha conjoined with any fraudulent transactions will simply give tabloid headline writers something to have wet dreams over.

Indeed, and he's also entitled to a family life - yet he would not be entitled to set up a charitable organisation with the express, corrupt intent to benefit members of his family - and if he did, he could rightly expect to be taken to task if his nepotism came to light, and if conflict of interest was obviously putting a strain on the organisation. And that's what it boils down to.

Well, at this point I'm aware that people set up 'charitable' trusts to benefit relations all the time. However, there are rules governing this. Usually, those rules involve the source of money being restricted to the founder, and being generated by lawful activity. If I had a lot of money sloshing around in bank accounts, there would presumably be ways and means of my ensuring that offspring were insulated from penury following my death, but the fraud squad would very quickly become interested if I tried soliciting "donations" to keep spoiled offspring swimming in yachts and cocaine.

If Richard Dawkins wanted pampered mistresses who exploit and manipulate him, and systematically harm certain people around him, as part of his private life - he should have done everything reasonable to keep them in his private life.

Though how he would succeed in this endeavour in this age is another of those mysterious questions to throw at Deep Thought. After all, if you're able to alight upon evidence that he's behaving like a miniature version of Silvio Berlusconi, he's not exactly exerting much effort to keep his sausage hiding antics private, is he? Meanwhile, it still amazes me that so-called "professional" journalists apparently haven't sniffed any of this, given the ease with which you've been able to assemble a fairly long paper trail. Which in turn leads me to ask, which of the Establishment figures he schmoozes with on a regular basis, is keeping the boys at the Daily Telegraph distracted with other things, and threatening the tabloids with dire consequences if they step out of line? Whilst the thought of Dawkins as a sort of James Bond figure, doing various covert favours for the Establishment, in return for having his arse protected when his libido gets the better of his cerebral cortex, might seem ridiculous to some, it looks somewhat less ridiculous in the light of the almost monastic silence on this issue, from the sort of people who routinely bill themselves in public as 'investigative journalists'.

I really think this is an issue for The Charity Commission and it's US equivalent to look into.

The IRS - which is essentially the US version of Revenue & Customs - deals with tax-exempt organisations in the US. I have researched various issues of (non-)compliance of tax-exempt organisations in the US, and I know that RDF is non-compliant by a number of important measures. The possible misappropriating of NBGA donations simply adds weight to the seriousness of the case - and it's one particular point that I felt deserved public attention.

I still have several loose ends to tie up - but, yes, the IRS will be hearing from me…

(Dawkins probably now wishes that I'd be less difficult, and just blackmail him instead. )

He's probably wishing he'd added you to his harem ...

Frankly, that's two important lessons I've learned before I start. If I'm ever in the position to try and do something substantive to fight the forces of unreason:

[1] Make sure the financial & legal sides of the operation are handled competently, by people I can trust to behave themselves;

[2] Make sure to keep any romantic entanglements well separated from the operation, and don't hire fuck buddies as staff members.

[lordpasternack]

Could've have been you with a nice tidy flat in the city eh?

I've mused about that…

It would probably be great for the brief period before Cornwell started sabotaging things, and before I started to experience the slow and painful realisation of how much of a doughball Dawkins is, underneath the eminently respectable veneer.

And then it would go sharply downhill - because I wouldn't mince my words no matter how many financial favours anyone might be doing me. Dawkins couldn't pay me to lie to him, and diplomacy is not a strong suit of mine. I would not be able to bite my tongue for the sake of the money and the glory and the compliments. It just wouldn't work out.

This isn't purely hypothetical. I had an infatuated friend and benefactor with a personality quite similar to Dawkins - and I recently told him to fuck off, for some of his behaviour.

Some things just aren't mean to be…