5.22.2009

Joomla!

Joomla! It's my new word for when self-righteous yet self-serving people get caught. Kent Hovind guilty of tax fraud? Joomla! Ted Haggard caught doing the naughty? Joomla! The Creation Museum blown away by a tornado? JOOMLA!

Well, that last hasn't happened yet, but give it time...

Here's the quick backstory on the origin of my new word. VenomFangX is a popular teen christian fundamentalist who has been evangelizing on YouTube for the past few years. He gained his share of supporters as well as detractors, particularly for being vehemently ignorant. Besides his stage name, he's also acquired the moniker "PCS" for "Poster-boy for Christian Stupidity". I first wrote about him back in October 2008, after he had gotten himself in a little legal hot water, which is bound to happen when the blissfully ignorant plays on the sharp rocks.

Apparently, he hasn't learned his lesson. Having developed quite a following, he used YouTube and his website to garner donations which he said he would donate to the Sick Children's Hospital after the first $500. Again, he was blissfully unaware that he was using these services and setting himself up as a financial middle man between two entities - his supporters and a hospital. That is, through an oral contract, he had apparently sold himself as a charity without legally establishing himself as a charity. Worse still, some accounts say he didn't even honor the contract, possibly keeping some if not all of the money for himself. The truth is still murky and may never be known. Suffice it to say that PayPal saw enough in this to suspend his account(s). So, to VenomFangX or PCS, here's a hearty JOOMLA! to you.

Oh yeah...if you visit his website within the next day or so, you will see this:



A much better synopsis can be found here:





VenomFangX/PCS/Shawn has all the markings of a great TV evangelist: greed and utter disregard for the teachings of Jesus.

3 comments:

ShawnMilo said...

Nice exposure of a jerk, but Joomla is the name of Web site software (http://www.joomla.org/) which has no affiliation with woo, so it's kind of retarded to use it as a pejorative term. Why don't we just call him a scumbag and be done with it?

T. Laurel Sulfate said...

Wow. I was tickled to know he'd been shut down, but I was not aware of the backstory. Thanks!

The skepTick said...

Apologies to Joomla, the software. Perhaps a respelling is in order. After all, Googol does much better Google. Maybe Joomla! will do better as Joom-La!