Quick Roundup 104

Monday, October 02, 2006

New Blog Feed

The new RSS feed for this blog is "feeds.feedburner.com/gusvanhorn".

I'm tempted ...

... to include "that fount of things good and true" as a subtitle for my blog. That phrase comes from a post on the war over at Objectively Speaking.

John Cox Does Cover Art

I congratulate John Cox on winning commissions to do the cover art and monthly caricatures for the 2007 desk calendar of the American Compass Book Club as well as the cover art for the soon-to-be-released Caucus of Corruption by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan.

Blogroll Changes

After sending word of Senator James Inhofe's global warming speech to Dollars and Crosses, I realized that I still hadn't added that blog to my sidebar. I have just rectified that omission.

Fans of Gavriel, the Israeli dad who pens AbbaGav will be pleased to learn that his blog is back on line. He will soon, however, be moving from his current abode at Blogspot to a new site. Some time after this occurs, I will quietly change the link in the sidebar.

Gambling Linked to War on Terrorism

Is it really any surprise that right in the middle of a war we are fighting against a religious foe -- whose overarching motivation is to tell us how to live our lives -- that we would see theocratic traitors in our midst do just that under the guise of fighting the war?

America's $6 billion (£3.2 billion) internet gambling industry is facing meltdown after the US Senate pushed through a Bill at the weekend outlawing the processing of bets by banks and credit companies.

...

Bill Frist, the Republican leader in the Senate, got the measure through by attaching it to an unrelated Bill that enhances port security.

... "Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams and frays the fabric of society," Dr Frist said. "The bottom line is simple: internet gambling is illegal. Although we can't monitor every online gambler or regulate offshore gambling, we can police the financial institutions that disregard our laws." [bold added]
Yeah. And the Taliban hold that women who don't wear burqas in Afghanistan damage its moral "fabric".

Religious fanatics with morals police: If you won't beat 'em, join 'em, eh, Dr. Frist?

Are Dry Counties History?

And speaking of asinine religious beliefs codified into law, I found this Houston Chronicle piece on the gradual movement away from total alcohol bans in many Texas counties to be mildly interesting.
Sarah Strinden is tired of what she calls the "pain-in-the-neck" drive she must take as a consequence of Texas' patchwork of local liquor laws.

From her house it's a 10-mile jaunt to the metal-sided beer barns and package stores in either of two adjoining wet counties. ''We don't buy a lot and store it, so when we're planning a casual drink with friends it's a 40-minute trip," she said. ''It's just inconvenient."

Strinden and others in Angelina County will vote in November whether to allow beer and wine in their grocery and convenience stores as well as whether restaurants can serve beer, wine and mixed drinks.
This sounds encouraging -- until you read a little further.
Petitions and elections seeking other types of alcohol sales such as bars or liquor stores have failed to attract business backing and campaign money and more frequently have failed, state records show. In short, beer joints, topless bars and hard liquor by the bottle are a much tougher sell.

...

Some of the strongest opposition to changing liquor laws across the state has come from self-interested competitors, Hatch said. [bold added]
So we see that the opposition to the vestiges of prohibition in Texas is unfortunately not a principled stand for the right to freedom of trade, but a pragmatic desire to have "just a little" to drink. And the fact that some businesses are just fine with things as they are (something I've blogged about before) also shows that whatever changes are occurring are not due to some rediscovery of the importance of freedom by residents of the Lone Star State.

We unfortunately have, here in Texas, a mere taste for beer when we would be far better off with an unquenchable thirst for freedom.

Too bad.

Privatization in Montenegro?

This article on a massive sell-off of government assets in newly-independent Montenegro is either very good or very bad news.
Since 2001, close to 80 percent of Montenegro's state assets have been sold, mostly to foreigners. Two telecommunications companies, a shipyard, an aluminum factory, the only brewery, most of the hotels, capital markets, and the oil import and distribution industries are already in private hands.
The article goes on to imply that this sell-off is merely benefitting a relatively small number of government kleptocrats. That may be, or it could just be typical anti-capitalist bias coming from our press.

Ultimately, only time will tell whether this is is really a sign of good things to come for Montenegro. Check back in five or ten years and ask whether the various properties have been re-confiscated and whether the government is doing an adequate job of protecting the property rights of its new private property owners.

Giving Kiosks

Some Southern evangelical pastor has come up with a new way to collect money. Aside from the amusing moral contortions various churches will go through before installing them, I found the following line very amusing.
"It's truly like an ATM for Jesus," [Pastor Marty] Baker said.
Yes. It is "truly like" an "ATM for Jesus". The operative word is "like". It is, in fact, an ATM for your hypocritical ass, Pastor Baker.

-- CAV

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! This story has created some conversation. It is easy to read an article and immediately think that you are an expert on church work and on digital giving. That's not how it works. I've been in church work for 25 years and have three degrees in my trade, but I AM NOT an expert. I am just a fellow struggler seeking to understand my walk with Christ and my service to His church.

Speaking of His Church. The Bible is clear that the church is to be funded by those who are following Christ. If you are not a Christ follower, don't worry. Giving is a heart issue. You can put a hundred giving kiosks in your church and not have one extra dollar come in. A giving machine will not increase revenue; a heart surrendered to Christ will.

Now about those fees. Apparently you guys are sadly mistaken about SecureGive's cut in those fees. Here's the truth. When I first rolled out the kiosks in March 2005, it was based on a e-commerce model. Every month I would cringe because of the fees that we were paying the bank to process the donations. I wanted more money to stay in the ministry.

I invested thousands of dollars of my own money to "crack the code" and to use PIN secured debit on our kiosks. Why? ... to save the church money! Here's the difference ... if you donate $1000 to your favorite charity or church on their website, it will cost that organization around $20 to process that gift. With the SecureGive system, a thousand dollar gift given with a pin-secured debit card will cost the church $1.00. Out of that dollar, SecureGive would get around .30. So, we make .30 out of a $1000.00 transactions. That won't send your kids to college (I have two kids in college). Bank fees are not where we are getting our money. We charge $49.95 per month for our services. That covers software licenses, ssl certificates, hosting fees, and so forth. So far this has been a labor of love and a passion to help churches to resource their ministries.

Maybe in the furture it will turn around. I hope so.

Be blessed today!

Marty Baker
marty.baker@securegive.com

Gus Van Horn said...

Mr. Baker,

Thank you for stopping by. I think your comment pretty well speaks for itself.

If your enterprise succeeds, you will doubtless have enough thirty-cent surcharges to put your children through college and more, not to mention all the money you will receive from your own congregation:

"Since then, kiosk giving has gradually gained acceptance among his upper-middle-class flock. The three kiosks are expected to take in between $200,000 and $240,000 this year — about 15 percent of the church's total donations."

But that is your moral dilemma, not mine, since possessing great amounts of wealth is considered a vice in your religion, Christianity, and not in my philosophy. Your problem, not mine, though it will be a nice one to have.

Good day,

Gus

Anonymous said...

gvh says,""I'm tempted ...

... to include "that fount of things good and true" as a subtitle for my blog. That phrase comes from a post on the war over at Objectively Speaking.""

Con mi permiso! It would look great!!! Cost? (if you use it) - how about a 'byline' link in a gvh post to help put me on the map.

Gus Van Horn said...

Dan,

I haven't decided yet, and even if I do, it might be awhile before I implement the change, but I was thinking about asking you about that.

If I do that, I will do what you ask at a minimum.

The other possibility is making some sort of "reviews" page and including it there.

Gus

Anonymous said...

The last three sentences in pastor Marty Baker's comment on gvh's post on 'Giving Kiosks' reads, "So far this has been a labor of love and a passion to help churches to resource their ministries.
Maybe in the future it will turn around. I hope so."

Yes, maybe it will turn around in the future. Maybe Christian religion will be taken more seriously... maybe even as seriously as Islam. Now, there's a SERIOUS RELIGION - no problem with financing either.

They, including the good pastor, don't understand where REAL SERIOUS FAITH leads... EVERY TIME -or maybe I'm wrong, maybe they do.

An earlier paragraph in the pastor's comment states, "Speaking of His Church. The Bible is clear that the church is to be funded by those who are following Christ. If you are not a Christ follower, don't worry. Giving is a heart issue. You can put a hundred giving kiosks in your church and not have one extra dollar come in. A giving machine will not increase revenue; a heart surrendered to Christ will."

Oh really. If that were true, and its not, the only salvation I seek is to be saved from all those 'hearts surrendered to Christ'. Just look at those in Islam who have most fully surrendered their hearts to Allah... they're strapping explosives to their chests.

Only reason will defeat this.

Gus Van Horn said...

Dan,

To focus on one comment: "They, including the good pastor, don't understand where REAL SERIOUS FAITH leads... EVERY TIME -or maybe I'm wrong, maybe they do."

Look at where it is leading this pastor. He has had what is really a very good idea, which can be applied to chrarity events and other contexts. And yet here he is, depending on how good my assumptions about his potential to turn a profit from the machine (excluding his church), either having to not profit from it or having to lie to others and/or himself about the propriety of making a profit! He loses monetarily, spiritually, and probably in both respects!

And HIS religion is a very watered-down version of the watered-down Christianity that most religious Americans practice!

Gus

AbbaGav said...

Gus, thanks for letting people know about the change in my blog. I really appreciate it. While having my blog go down was very frustrating, the acts of support (comments, emails, posts) really helped pick me up. Thanks again.

The new site is up and running now. There will still be some work done on it over the next week or two I'm sure, but I'm going to be posting there regularly now, for better or worse.

Gus Van Horn said...

You're welcome, Gavriel. I changed the URL in my bloroll this afternoon.

Gus