Start a home business, get rich quick, win financial freedom! If you watch late-night TV, you've heard it all before. But what's the story behind these slick pitchmen and their dubious schemes? Enter The Salty Droid, your ornery metal guide to the corrupt underworld of scam-marketing scum. This charmingly acerbic bot (owned and operated by mild-mannered Chicago dog-lover Jason Michael Jones [inter-view, long talk + transcript]) is a valiant crusader against the vile con-men who bankrupt the elderly and the desperate with beautiful lies. Exposed so far: A shadowy "Syndicate" of frauduct-pushing personality cults polluting the media with blogspam and woo-woo talking points. Boiler rooms in the Utah desert where telemarketers farm credit from easy targets with cunning, probing scripts [PDF]. Powerful politicians bought wholesale. Believers left to die in fraudulent new-age vision quests. It's a soul-crushing beat, enough to make one feel like a regular catcher-bot in the digital rye. But somebody's got to do it -- preferably someone with plasma nunchucks and titanium skin.
posted by Rhaomi on Aug 31, 2011 - 47 comments

The Truth About Race, Religion, And The Honor Code At BYU. Deadspin has released an exposé on Brigham Young University's Honor Code, which prohibits students from having sex or drinking alcohol. The article accuses the University of selectively punishing minority (and especially African American) athletes who violate the Code. Co-authored by Darron Smith, a former BYU instructor. Responses from former BYU students at Religion Dispatches, the Deseret News and the Provo Daily Herald. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 14, 2011 - 133 comments

How about tolerance for all? These regular protests in Utah (or other LDS-dense populations) don't seem to make much news, though they'd probably be scandalous if performed against other religious groups.
posted by oissubke on Oct 10, 2003 - 133 comments

Two men arrested for handing out anti-Mormon literature. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' and Salt Lake City's restrictions on behavior they deem "offensive" on the plaza are now the subject of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver." ... "The deed made it clear it [the plaza] was not a First Amendment forum..." Does the ACLU have a good case?
posted by aaronshaf on Apr 9, 2002 - 45 comments