Never forget me, because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.
—A. A. Milne
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Click to embiggen…
On the topic of the first U.S./Iranian talks in decades:
The way Crocker described the meeting, he had taken the opportunity to lay out the whole series of accusations that Washington has against Iran for its “meddling” in the internal affairs of Iraq.
Excuse me?!
Militants Widen Reach as Terror Seeps Out of Iraq
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.
I’ve said for a long time that Iraq is a providing a live-fire training ground for Islamic militants against the U.S. military—at the expense of the American taxpayer, no less. Well, we haven’t caught bin Laden yet because he’s hiding, but we sure are safer. Aren’t we?
Wolfowitz’s Next Assignment
In a bold move to undermine the international terror network, President George W. Bush today named former deputy defense secretary and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz to be the new president of al-Qaida.
Mr. Wolfowitz, who has no experience running an international terror organization, struck many Washington insiders as an unlikely choice for the al-Qaida job.
But in a White House ceremony introducing his nominee for the top terror post, President Bush indicated that Mr. Wolfowitz’s role in planning the war in Iraq and bringing scandal to the World Bank showed that he was “just the man” to bring chaos and disorder to al-Qaida.
“I’ve seen Paul Wolfowitz in action,” said Mr. Bush, a beaming Mr. Wolfowitz at his side. “If anyone can mess up al-Qaida, it’s this guy.”
Joking aside, the only way to win the War!on!Terror! would be to infiltrate their leadership with neocons. There’s nothing they can’t mismanage…
Scientology makes it in classroom door
Inside the industrial looking brick walls of one of Louisiana’s poorest performing middle schools, Scientologists finally have achieved a longtime goal.
A study skills curriculum written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is being taught as mainstream public education.
All the eighth-graders at Prescott Middle School are being taught learning techniques Hubbard devised four decades ago when he set out to remedy what he viewed as barriers to learning.
Ewww.
I’m surprised none of the usual Christian suspects cry foul and demand that a Christian learning technique be used. Perhaps they haven’t progressed past their old-fashioned ways, though:
See that bonfire?
Therefore, god exists.
Be careful what you ask for… After religious pressure groups used the courts to be allowed to hand out religious pamphlets, things aren’t quite going their way. What they wanted was to push their version of Christianity, while everybody else deserves the short end of the stick.
The WorldNutDaily reports on some poor teacher’s distress about having to quietly dispose of promotional material for a summer camp for atheists, freethinkers, and humanists.
A representative of the teachers talked to WND only on condition that a name and school not be used, and said such advertisements provided by the district to hand out to children violate the teachers’ religious beliefs.
Hypocrites and wankers.
Missing Doctor Lay Dead in Garage for 22 Years
A doctor who went missing 22 years ago has been found dead in the loft of his garage after apparently committing suicide in 1985. His wife and daughter were unaware they were living meters away from his corpse.
(...)
When his widow Barbara reported him missing, police searched the grounds and the house but failed to look in the loft above the garage. They focused their search in the nearby forest because he had been an avid hunter. She and her daughter Claudia were reported to be deeply shocked by the discovery.
Gruesome.
How can you not set foot in that loft for 22 years, though?
Beauty Below The Belt: Doctors Warn against Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery
When women opt for elective vaginal cosmetic surgery, are they taking the obsession with physical beauty too far? The sharp increase in women wanting “designer vaginas” has prompted the British Medical Journal (BMJ) to warn women seeking the surgery to find alternative solutions to a procedure they say could have unknown risks.
I’m at a loss of words…
I watched the documentary “Deliver Us From Evil” a week or two ago. Here’s IMDB’s plot summary:
Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O’Grady quickly won each congregation’s trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O’Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O’Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered.
While I feel I should comment on it, I’m still not calmed down enough to even quote-mine it. This documentary has been released only recently, but there’s a similar documentary by the BBC, Sex crimes and the Vatican, which is available online. As the site hosting the documentary puts it:
British documentary alleges pope linked to “child abuse cover-up”
A British documentary claimed that Pope Benedict XVI was implicated in the systematic cover-up of child sex abuse allegations against Catholic priests.
Before becoming head of the church, the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger enforced church doctrinal orthodoxy, including a “secret Vatican decree which seemed to shelter the perpetrators and silence the victims of abuse”, the Panorama programme said.
It so happens that the Italian bishops are not happy about the prospect of airing the documentary in Italy, even though a dubbed or subtitled version on youtube or similar appears to be a big hit over there:
Italian TV urged to scrap BBC film accusing Pope of abuse cover-up.
The documentary said that in 2001, Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had issued an updated version of an order that was used to silence the victims of sexual abuse. The film was made by Colm O’Gorman, founder of a charity for abuse victims.
The Roman Catholic church accused Mr O’Gorman of misrepresenting the documentary evidence. It said that the Vatican’s directive, first issued in 1962, was intended to avoid the misuse of information gathered in confessional. It imposed an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest and any witness.
The BBC documentary said this was meant to protect the priest’s reputation during the investigation, but could “offer a blueprint for cover-up”.
At this point, I view the Catholic Church as being past the possibility of redemption. In the end notes of Deliver Us From Evil, it states that Bush gave Ratzinger immunity (or an amnesty?) for whatever role he played in the pedophilia scandal. No smoke without fire, eh. There’s an obvious gotcha with the quote above—a victim may not raise the issue in the confessional (why would they anyway, it’s not like the victim has anything to confess) and in any case, the only party who has anything to gain by an oath of secrecy are the perpetrators and whoever shields them. Wasn’t it the systemic sheltering of pedophiles what this scandal was all about (once you look past the scores and scores of victims)?
It will take a very compelling argument to convince me that the BBC documentary isn’t right on about the CC putting the protection of the priests above that of their flock and I’m inclined to take their word for Ratzinger’s role. All he has to do is to release the fugitive priests (I mean, the priests hastily reassigned to the Vatican) to secular authorities, to fully cooperate with the prosecutors, and to make the Church take responsibility for its actions. I’m not holding my breath…
I think the original is here.
Hitler or Falwell!
Friends, before the iron grows too cold, I’d like to play a little game called Hitler or Falwell! This is a simple game of Godwinism, in which I present a quote and YOU guess who said it! Let’s begin, shall we?
1. My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter.
2. This ‘turn the other cheek’ business is all well and good but it’s not what Jesus fought and died for.
3. Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith…. We need believing people.
4. I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
5. Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
6. We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
7. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press. . .we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess.
8. This the national government will regard its first and foremost duty to restore the unity of spirit and purpose of our people. It will preserve and defend the foundations upon which the power of our nation rests. It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our people and state, under its firm protection….May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our people.
9. Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.
10. We’re fighting against humanism, we’re fighting against liberalism ... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today .
Answers below the fold.
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