Riddle of the Sphinx - Martin Rowson - Guardian UK

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How U.S.Congress' Dogs (without Human Rights) are forced fed on Hunger Strike at Gitmo

Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) force fed under standard Guantánamo Bay procedure.

Warning: Graphic

Pope Stumbles - New Vatican Greek Words in the Far Right Church Blogosphere – Coprophila and Coprophagia – Journalistic Odyssey of SH*T – Pope Francis’s words, actions of Denial?

Dancing Around the Truth?
Otherwise you might
step in IT.

Rather than open up and or cop a plea now that he has diplomatic immunity, Pope Francis I refuses to give interviews to journalists about his ties to the murderous reign of the Argentine Junta 1976-1983 and its Dirty War and his part or non-part in it.

“We know Pope Francis is humble because he keeps telling us he is humble.”  David Letterman 3/25/13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/pope-francis-quotations-by-him-about-him

On the Roman curia, the governing body of the Catholic church:

"I see it as a body that gives service, a body that helps me and serves me. Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects."

No doubt, the Media, MSM, Journalists in approximation of the RC Curia of the Vatican should wear Hazmat suits and not be contaminated with a sexual turn on by or an addictive need to consume more shit (definitions below Wikipedia) than necessary when working in and or commenting on the Vatican.

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

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

My thanks as always to Deacon Nick over at Protect The Pope.

http://protectthepope.com/?p=7049

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Is Pope Francis Elect’s Hands Covered in the Blood of Argentina’s Dirty Little War that Killed and Tortured Tens of Thousands - Crimes of the RC Church in Argentina

Mothers of the Plaza of May Seeking Information About their Missing Relatives in Argentina

Did the RC Church profit from the sale of Babies of Female Prisoners who disappeared after they gave birth in Prison?

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2012/07/babies-as-commodity-for-cash-in.html

The aging ex-Argentine dictator gets yet another sentence of 50 years added to his imprisonment in a baby stealing ring among his cadre of military thugs.  An estimated 13,000 pregnant prisoners of Argentina’s “dirty war” disappeared.  It is now thought that those women were executed once they gave profit to a profitable commodity like a new born baby.

Did Cardianl Bergoglio aka Pope Francis give aid and comfort to the monsters that ran Argentina 1976-1983? 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/04/argenitina-videla-bergoglio-repentance?fb=native

What one did not hear from any senior member of the Argentinian hierarchy was any expression of regret for the church's collaboration and in these crimes. The extent of the church's complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentinian navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

Above photo related to the:

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

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

Missing Persons / Victims in Argentina's Dirty War

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Bradley Manning – Person of the Year in British Press

Guardian person of the year: Voters choose Bradley Manning


 "What that kid did really focused the world on the evil that these men can do - and what evil all people can do when they feel inclined. But it also showed the courage to pull through and the will of others to not succumb to evil,"

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

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Cure for “Irish Syndrome” – Piss on Vatican’s Official Sacred Buggery Tradition – Ireland Closes Embassy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/nov/08/ireland-vatican-diplomatic-snub?newsfeed=true

The closure of the Irish embassy to the Holy See in Rome is a major setback for the Vatican. The decision by Ireland's government brings to life a number of Vatican nightmares. First of all, it was made for "economic reasons", which means that keeping a diplomatic mission at the papal court is supposed to be expensive (implicitly, uselessly expensive). Worse, the costs just seem to be a pragmatic and neutral explanation to cover up a hot political struggle: the sex abuse scandals involving Irish Catholic priests.

But in a period of financial turmoil, economy might be a perfect reason, or excuse, for other governments to take similar steps. This has happened before. In 1867, the United States wanted to retaliate for Pius IX's alleged support to the Confederates, and the Union government simply cut off funds for the then Vatican legation (there wasn't yet an embassy). Here is the second nightmare: a potential "domino effect", underlining the failure of the Vatican in handling the sex abuse cases.

There is still a disconnect between western public opinion and Catholic episcopates on this thorny issue. The Holy See last year made Charles Scicluna a kind of "top prosecutor". Scicluna admitted at long last that paedophilia was a crime that required the church to collaborate with the civil judiciary. But Scicluna's assessment, although backed by the pope himself and aimed at the whole Catholic world, may have come too late.

The Irish action appears to confirm this suspicion. It exploded after a long and tough dispute between the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, and the Holy See. In Anglo-Saxon countries around the world and in northern Europe, the role of the Catholic church and its approach to individual rights has been harshly criticised. As a consequence, a third nightmare might come true: the shrinking of the international profile of the Vatican. If even a "Catholic" country, as Ireland is, can decide to forgo its diplomatic mission at the papal court, what about nations in which Catholics are a minority?

So far, economic concerns have been kept out of this discussion. Some governments have repeatedly but confidentially remarked that the costs of their embassies to the Holy See are hardly justified; and the tensions stemming from sex abuse scandals have kindled the fire. Nevertheless, Catholic lobbies and prestige have up to now prevented these states from taking drastic decisions. But the spread of the "Irish syndrome" could change this attitude.

What is viewed today as poor diplomatic management of a divisive issue both by Dublin and by Rome could create a historic rupture. Dublin was also moved by domestic political calculations. It wanted to give a signal that the country had changed even in its relations with the Catholic church, mirroring a broader anti-clerical mood. Ireland has announced the closure of its embassies in Iran and East Timor as well.

Some people also wonder whether the downgrading of these relations could be advantageous for Britain: the Holy See, in fact, always supported Ireland as a united state.

But the result is in any case a paradoxical one. "Catholic" Ireland could prove to be the pathfinder of a worrying development for the Vatican, whose diplomatic and moral weight is openly and badly challenged. If it doesn't move on rapidly, the echo of the scandals combined with the effects of the financial crisis could weaken its voice and international presence. And the closure of the Irish embassy could turn to be just a bitter appetiser: the first in a series.

WikiLeaks – “stateless organization”

An interesting article from the Guardian UK that shows the trail of how the WikiLeak organization first brought video, earlier this year of a US Apache Helicopter attack, to the public's attention, releasing it showing the death of a Reuters photographer and his driver as well as other civilians.

The video had it impact but WikiLeaks had no credibility as an organization. Its recent release of what are being called the Afghanistan war logs to overseas newspapers made it impossible for the US government to stop publication of these top secret documents.

There is a give and a take among its members within this organization at present that sprouts from hacker traditions and experiences. Julian Assange has published free software for the web, some of which and its encryptions can be used to protect whistle blowers. 

Why WikiLeaks turned to the press

Around the time that the video was released, hubris among the WikiLeakers was thick. In the New Yorker piece, we hear from a friend and supporter of Assange's, a Dutch hacker named Rop Gonggrijp, who smugly says that "we are not the press" and "the source is no longer dependent on finding a journalist who may or may not do something good with his document".

WikiLeaks is stateless (sounds very global) and suddenly a household word and concept. How long before it conforms to acceptable journalistic standards in its quest to make an impact on the modern mind and media? Being stateless at the moment has what impact on imitators down the road? Will these imitators be for the good or bad? Who is to say.

New word usage – Androphilia

From an article by Andrew Brown in the Guardian UK is a new usage of a technical term to possible describe or use other than misogyny.

Androphilia or misogyny

I think myself there is something in it, and that you can distinguish between misogyny and androphilia even when both are found in the same man, or woman. For an example, I would give you CS Lewis, whose misogyny seems to wax and wane with the state of his love life: it more or less vanished once Joy Davidman found him; but his androphilia was a life-long condition.

Androphilia

Androphilia has some long standing meaning in psychology. Brown is using it to describe that the male dominated churches do not hate women so much as they love their own sex over the other. An original homosexual usage can now I suppose be used to describe what seems like anti-feminism by mainstream fundamentalist churches of the Christian persuasion.

It is an everyday thing to find new uses for older words in this modern global age.

It is hard sometimes to keep up with all the changes that occur everyday in language.

Time for an Intervention in the Church?

Rosanne Barr, a well known comedian, has chimed in on the abuse scandal in the RC Church. She sees a plot against Gays. And a Critical Silence about the numbers in abuse regarding girls.

The RC church’s dictionary definition of pedophiles identifies them as homosexual. It would not be the first time that the church uses scapegoats such as Gays or Jews to get over a rough spot in their mismanagement by the hierarchy.

Barr Wades Into Catholic Church Abuse Scandal

In a post on her official website, she writes, "The pedo (pedophile) priests are trying to cover up the number of Little Girls they have molested too, as if that doesn't matter as much as what happens to boys. Trust me, the number of girls raped and molested by priests is at least double the boys. They are trying to cover it all up so that they can end up purging gay priests, and laying the blame on them.

"The fact is pedos like to rape both boys and girls, and only a small number of pedos are exclusively into male children.

I am starting to think that any parent who takes their kids to Catholic churches from now on should lose custody.

Taking your kid where you know sex offenders hang out is inexcusable!!!"

Interesting point about the almost seeming silence of abuse about girls.

There is also a very interesting note of non-denial – yes I said non-denial - from a RC archbishop regarding the present crisis in the church.

The image of the Catholic Church

"We have betrayed the very Gospel we preach. The Good News we claim to announce sounds so hollow, so devoid of any meaning when matched with our much publicized negative moral behaviour. Many who looked up to priests as their model feel betrayed, ashamed and disappointed. They feel that some priests have "slipped away from the footprints of the Apostles." Trust has been compromised. The halo has been tilted, if not broken. What happens in Ireland or in Germany or America affects us all. It simply means that the misbehaviour of priests in Africa has not been exposed to the same glare of the media as in other parts of the world.

"We must therefore take responsibility for the hurt, the scandals, the pain and the suffering caused by ourselves who claim to be models of good behaviour. The image of the Catholic church is virtually in ruins because of the bad behaviour of its priests, wolves wearing sheep's skin, preying on unsuspecting victims, inflicting irreparable harm, and continuing to do so with impunity. We are slowly but surely bent on destroying the church of God by undermining and tearing apart the faith of lay believers. Ironically, priests have become a stumbling block to the promotion of vocations.

"Bad news spreads like wild fire. I wish I could say that there are only a few bad apples. But the outrage around us suggests that there are more than just a few bad apples."

I am quoting a big chunk of Guardian UK editor Andrew Brown’s article on this. I thought the quotation in whole was significant enough to print it in its entirety.

Somewhere between what Rosanne Barr believes and what Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg South Africa has to say and believe – and what you and I believe – I think there is a consensus and forum growing for an Intervention on behalf of the People of God toward the failed management of the RC church.

An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by one, or often many, people (usually family and friends) to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis, or other serious problem. Wikipedia

The church needs an Intervention on this matter. The Archbishop has started the process. Maybe it will work it way all the way up from the bottom of the world in South Africa.

The victims have had to deal with this management problem of denial. Denial every step of the way by management along the timeline has brought us to this massive crisis.

It is time for the front office management to own up to poor management past and try to change management style and depth of caring before the company goes under.

excellent conversation - - Christian and Muslim

An Excellent conversation and video dudes, between a Christian and a Muslim.

We could both be wrong about God: Jesus

Flying Spaghetti Monster in the Sky

And now for something completely different as the narrator used to say on Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

I read a lot of comments on the Cif (comment is free) Belief section of the British Newspaper online – Guardian UK. The most successful writer there would appear to be Andrew Brown, editor of Cif Belief. His interests are all over the religious universe but a lot of times it is basically religion touching the realms of science and evolution.

Well anyway, the comments are sometimes more enlightening to me that the article itself. But there was a phrase I kept hearing between the writer and some of the regular commenters and that was “Flying Spaghetti Monster”.

I am no dummy but these days I get tired of looking up all these texting abbreviations – IMHO – etc., so I just assumed or even imagined that FSM was a character on Sesame Street or the like. Fool is me.

I am behind on the curve on this one folks? You already had heard of this new deity and religion? Perhaps the Minister of Silly Walks told you before me.

But lo and behold, Flying Spaghetti Monster is a real deity and the basis of a new religion that challenges Creative Design for equal time in American redneck States' education curriculum.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the deity of the parody religion the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism. Created in 2005 by Bobby Henderson, it was originally intended as a satirical protest against the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in public schools.

In an open letter sent to the Kansas State Board of Education, Henderson parodied the concept of intelligent design by professing belief in a supernatural creator which closely resembles spaghetti and meatballs. Henderson further called for his "Pastafarian" theory of creation to be allotted equal time in science classrooms alongside intelligent design and evolution. He explained that since the intelligent design movement uses ambiguous references to an unspecified "Intelligent Designer", any conceivable entity may fulfill that role, even a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

After Henderson published the letter on his website, it rapidly became an internet phenomenon and a symbol for the case against intelligent design in public schools.

Whatever. Join up if you wish. These days everybody’s got their own religion or obsesssion with pasta and ramen noodles. In all fairness, I did start this out on a quote from Monty Python etc.

Mormons in Secret Merger Talks with Catholics

An internal coup has happened in Temple Sqaure since its temporary approval of gays rights within Salt Lake City limits? Remorse. Regress. Stop the madness!

I guess the magic, Black magic? of re-baptizing all my dead Catholic relatives has brought the Vatican round to recognize the one true magical kingdom in Utah.

For a second there, I thought I saw the word merger between these great noble institutions in America. Their “shared moral principals” are no doubt the basis of secret ongoing merger talks. I doubt that it will ever be an outright merger. But I can see Joseph Smith, Prophet and occasional horse thief, being raised to RC sainthood or even Church Father status based on his forged and plagiarized writings.

Thank the white Caucasian God that Solomon Spaulding is long dead. Though I am still in hopes of another Mark David Chapman document to surface saying that Joe Smith on his death bed converted to the one true church via the Jesuits. That would reassure me.

I did not see this in any American MSM, talks being secret you know. I first saw it in the Guardian UK, which because of Britain’s diversity these days and quasi-official Church of England thing, that paper has an excellent daily religion section. I am not certain how the secular atheist New York Times handles religion. It may be in the Arts section with the recipes.

Well anyway, if this is a PR handout, then the American papers did not want to touch a tired old religion story of two dying, declining Old Testament like entities, the Church of LDS and the RC Church America INC.

Searching around I found this breaking story on the Catholic Blogosphere and Utah Newspapers dreaming of glory days past and ahead in current joint efforts with the RC hierarchy.

Merger talks are good. A shrinking believer base makes it necessary. Shared corporate expenses. Shared Hate Non-Profit organizations to push gay-bashing and more restrictions on women’s right to choose.

Mormons, Catholics must defend religious freedom, Cardinal says

PROVO, Utah -- The fight to defend moral principles is linking Mormons and Catholics like never before.

"In recent years, Catholics and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have stood more frequently side by side in the public square to defend human life and dignity," Francis Cardinal George told nearly 12,000 students, faculty and community members gathered Tuesday at BYU.

"I'm personally grateful that after 180 years of living mostly apart from one another, Catholics and Latter-day Saints have begun to see each other as trustworthy partners in defense of shared moral principles."

Mormons and Catholics join forces

Last Tuesday, in a speech called Catholics and Latter-day Saints: partners in the defence of religious freedom, he told an audience that Catholics and Mormons must stand together as a "vital bulwark" against those who wanted to "reduce religion to a purely private reality".

“Trustworthy partners in defense of moral principles” – I heard (a rumor) all the U.S. Bishops have been down to Mississippi and had sex therapy along side Tiger. I am reassured. We would not want to have to share females in all those group marriages in Utah with the paps, would we? Though if you think about it, with polygamy, there are plenty numbers potential in the possible altar boy/future priest category.

“Reduce religion to a purely private reality” – well hell yeah, who wants the Mormons or the RC Catholic bullshit on the public platter. I thought religion was supposed to be private.

If “defense of religious freedom” are the new code words for “forced religion” in the public square – fuck it!.

I am glad that Studebaker and Packard are in secret merger talks. The Mormons and Catholics together really represent the future. Yeah right.

Botnet of Humanity - Botnet of Religion

I ran in to a great article by Sarah Posner, author of God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, on the Guardian UK Religion section.

Some of the blog comments are fascinating to me once you get past the usual hacks hanging around a comments page. The Americans may have the ingenuity and energy of enterprise part of the English Speaking World, but the Brits retain love of the mother language and real journalism and good discussion of the subjects at hand. No great American Intellectual Dumbing Down yet in Britainnia, I am glad to report.

I have run into an interesting way of looking at or dissecting Religion in terms of computer language and or terminology. I do not completely understand what is being said here but I feel obligated to pass it on to my readers for their own dissemination.

I quote from Commenter Label names – no profiles available - but listed as documentation of source.

The great evangelical rebranding

Timvincible
1 Jan 2010, 1:55PM:

It the world of IT we have the concept of the botnet. A botnet is what is created when a computer virus infects a large number of computers and gives control of certain aspects of those computers' behaviour over to a single individual or organisation. These botnets can be ordered to act like a single multi-component entity, but often lie dormant for most of the time and owners of botnet zombie computers ('zombie' is the term for an infected computer) don?t even realise anything is wrong.

When we become members of an organised belief system that dictates certain aspects of our behaviour, we are joining a human botnet. Over the last decade, there has been a growing divide within society as those who recognise the botnet nature of religion (in essence, if not in name) clash with those who would have us believe that religion is not a form of mind control. The critics of religion (such as Richard Dawkins) point out how individuals who are members of a religion loose a certain capacity to think for themselves, and that this can lead to acts of cruelty, violence and bigotry. The 9/11 terrorist act is an example of what happens when the controller of a human religious botnet activates his human zombies.

The botnet comparison is extremely powerful, as it is now widely accepted in Western Europe that organised religion acts this way (despite the contrary claims made by religious leaders and politicians), even if the botnet term is not applied...

And:

TimGF
1 Jan 2010, 10:49PM

I would say though that the botnet effect is all around us. I have worked with companies where you can see that the employees seem to share many beliefs (about the company) and personal characteristics. Sometimes the employees start to resemble their managers in mannerisms etc. You can see it also when you go to other countries and you find that ways of doing things, accepted values etc can be very different.

But I do agree that such things are common in religion too. I guess the worst examples of this have been the few occasions where mass suicides have occurred. We are used to belonging to groups such as tribes, companies and clubs and people tend to assume that this is also how to operate in spiritual matters, whereas it is inappropriate because it can lead to a lot of "control". I have experienced mild "control" myself in church settings, although there were a lot of good things there too. But if you look carefully at the teachings of Jesus, you find that what he started was not "religion" as we now know it. He started a kind of movement that people originally called "The Way". But at the time of Constantine, many got swept up into a "religion". In fact, if you look at Jesus, you find he is very different from founders of religions and sects. Many committed Christians nowadays do not atttend a traditional "church" because they have given up on religion...

Flight 253 a set up? – Fifth Column Intro to Yemen?

I have to take everything with a grain of salt lately with the MSM.

This Mutallab guy from Nigeria, the suspected terrorist on flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day – I have to wonder who set this “terrorist” gig up.

The GOP is in full – shut down the government at all costs - Piranha mode - for the 2010-2012 elections. That's normal politics in a time of economic chaos and global terrorism?

In the past few days, an African face on the news with the word “terrorist” or "Al-Qaeda" planted under that face seems like too much of a casual visual coincidence considering the many months of that same visual set up by the GOP baggers and Fox News and Rush hate Radio - as in Obama's face with the "terrorist" label on placards at FOX/Tea Bagger staged events.

Is it possible that independent agents, independent of currently employed and official US intelligence, in fact traitors, might be at work to sabotage the Executive branch and sabotage the country as well. Is a fifth column in our government a very real possibility? I think the answer is YES!

That stories and situations are not only being planned in Al-Qaeda’s headquarters wherever that gypsy caravan is today or will be next week? That it is a real possibility that traitors or hired out parties can get hold of and manipulate young Muslims and put them in a position to upset Christmas Day, a sacred Christian and family holiday?

More than the Al-Qaeda mobile taco stand could be operating out in the field, the many fields out there in the middle east and mid Asia. This, to top off one year of “Shut Down the American Domestic Government” of Barack Obama – sounds too much of a convenience to this cynic’s ear or stomach, gut to believe.

To end a decade where more than likely - and more like insider information brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center – that that decade ends with a Brit trained twit peeing his pants on a jet and ruining a home made cocktail bomb in his shorts – some things just don’t make sense to me. This is the same Al-Qaeda in 2009 as in 2001? Does it make sense to you?

With Cheney whining and hoping for a terrorist attack to justify his personal reign of terror over our democratic government for eight years, and Rush Limbaugh who wants Obama to fail and the country too as well by inference, one have to wonder where our true friends are and where our true enemies lie, or lie with, or lie within.

Is there a real fifth column in America trying to destroy what is left of our democracy and our free enterprise system??? One has to ask that. And who besides the wacko right, the rodents, would be in full throttle behind such a fifth column foraging amidst the shards of and in cover of the once Grand Old Party? And let’s not forget FOX anti-Obama/entertainment “news”.

I went off half cocked in my recent rant on this Detroit incident about Suicide Virgin Humpers.

I saw the following link on a blog on the Guardian UK related to the attempted terrorist attack. The comment with that link was I believe later removed. I do not remember the rhetoric attached to the link but it may have been offensive. I did not despair because I read the link and took it with a grain of salt. Even if true, this testimony from two lawyers supposedly on Flight 253 could be false. MI-5 may have pressed the Guardian to remove the link etc. I was waiting for further second hand confirmation that this story was not a hoax, a Heene baloon boy free publicity thing?

Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect...(MLive.com exclusive)

Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.

Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning.

While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'”

Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.

The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.

I saw the link briefly listed on Drudge and yesterday it showed up in Google news spotlight but only briefly. Finally today a legitimate new source, the Detorit Free Press has followed through on the story.

FBI probes account of Michigan couple in Flight 253 case

Lori Haskell said that FBI agents spoke with her and her husband, Kurt, Tuesday morning after the two spoke to news media outlets about Kurt Haskell's account that he saw an older, well-dressed Indian man help suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his effort to board the flight in Amsterdam, Netherlands, without a passport.

I expect a deadend on the story. Nip it in the bud so to speak. Dallas style coverup?

No sooner than this failed plot got some media steam than Senator Joe Liebermann got out his price placard, wearing it on his back, his vote and opinion for sale at various scales – gets on the "we have to invade Yemen" bandwagon because this is where the terrorist was trained etc.

Yemen is Saudi Arabia’s back door. If the Saudis can’t handle it, well it is time to do a “Mission Accomplished” and march into Riyahd tomorrow. Why settle for the toe nail clippings in Yemen when you can eat the whole roasted cow just a few more miles down the road.

The Romans stayed in power for centuries with Bread and Circus. There is plenty of Circus – the Media. But where is the Bread (oil)? Where is the Bread? Forget the Fear Factor bullshit. What’s in it for us the American People to turn a blind eye to global injustice and eternal war?

It is time for some sense in our foreign policy. The tail of the dog, the fifth column, the enemy within, has got to stop wagging the nation - wagging us to death.

Abstract Concept of God - ACG - a.c.g.

This is a connect the dot thing and about how two totally unrelated subjects have in fact a stake in future global communication.

The first dot happened this morning as I read a piece by Jason Walsh on the Guardian UK news website.

Kick the state out of our bedrooms

Indeed the times, they are a-changin' and it is clear that public opinion on gay marriage is changing with it. When Boyzone singer Stephen Gately died the tabloid press referred to Andy Cowles, as his husband. It was slightly jarring at first but we'll get used to it: the sky didn't fall, thousands of men didn't abandon their wives and head down to the local gay club and although there was something a war of words on the internet … well, who cares?...

Which led to this sentence which leads me back to the topic theme.

The fiercest opposition to gay marriage comes from conservative Christians who see marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a woman before God.

Suddenly I realize how so many of us are confused by terms already in usage, terms in transit and terms yet to be born. And in a present and future global sense.

The article is about how a term such as “husband” is appropriate and needs to understood by all as in a gay relationship. This cradle but not to the grave homophobe has had his share of uncomfortable moments in life seeing gays kiss and or hold hands in public. It takes some getting used to but get over it. Who cares? Who cares about the private lives of other people?

Enough with the gay stuff already. The second quote about alpha-male christians leads to how I have tried to pull my thoughts together about atheism and agnosticism and a whole range of terms I and or you may not be aware of or might need to get used as terms.

“Marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a women before God”

God? What is that? The founding fathers, born in the Enlightenment, were comfortable in their own skins with God being remote and creative (Deism) or God being up front and personal (Theism).

In an interview by Australian Atheist Cameron Reilly with Father Peter Kennedy of St. Mary’s in Exile Brisbane, Reilly kept using the term “Anthropomorphic” – a mouth full - which means giving God an attribute of humanity as in a white haired guy in the sky and or “personal god” concept.

Getting back to the marriage definition used by fanatical christians with marriage, forming a sacred bond, as in spoken vows of a man and a women “before God”. It struck me how God is an Abstract Concept. God might be real in a spirit form but he, she, or it is not visible in this world. The majority opinion and the majority assumption that God is a word or term that can stand alone in understanding or communication is fading with that religious majority into a future global minority opinion.

I came to this new term Abstract Concept of God (ACG) (a.c.g.) to bridge some gaps of understanding in our merging world cultures. God is not real. God may exist but when people are taking vows or swearing oaths they are taking those vows and or oaths to an Abstract Concept of God (to an abstract concept called "God").

Helping me along in my evolving thoughts and understanding about what is real and what is not real is my study recently of Atheism. One of the persons helping recently is the late great artist George Carlin, in a filmed comedy routine from 1999.

I do not invite you to see the video below if you are not curious about atheism. I was a bit squimish when I saw the same routine on HBO a year or two ago. But gradually I have come around, can look and laugh at some of the cultural absurdities and superstitions that still languish in this so called modern civilized culture.

In a way my fear of atheism has done an about turn much like my about turn in terms of supporting 100% human rights for gays and all other human beings on this planet, as well as for those in belief or as non-believers.

Gone are the days of Madelyn Murray O’Hair – angry and reactive atheists to a bad religious experience – and going forward with the young who have not experienced the medieval experience of religion and their atheism is – what is all this “bullshit” about religion and God stuff (?).

The concept about assuming that the word God alone is enough in the public square to express yourself is changing. The concept as described above about forming a sacred bond by taking vows before God is perhaps turning into the perjorative at the moment no matter how much cash and Public Relations reinforcement of religious medieval concepts is going on in the present world.

The majority POV about vows before God may be the minority POV in a future global culture and taking “vows before an ACG (abstract concept of god)” may be the politically correct way to phrase that sentence in a decade or two.

(Warning - there is a lot of street profanity in the video below.)

Missing the Point - The Ryan Report

The British press is covering the Ryan Report in more detail than the American MSM. It is closer to home geographically.

My apologies to Archbishop Nichols for taking away from his installation day yesterday at Westminster Cathedral, the seat of the RC church in Britain. I of course should note that, as a Protestant and a Cultural Christian, I just see red when I see someone in the clergy wearing gold. It feeds into my own personal prejudice and my own mythical 11th Catholic commandment that “Thou shalt honor thy local gold encrusted bishop” – gold is so, you know, un-Jesus to me.

The remarks of the Archbishop of England and Wales and sticking his nose in the next RC bailiwick of Ireland deserve some critique. Whether quoted in or out of context, his remarks show a remarkable lack of empathy with the victims and in favor of the victimizers. It’s not my fault that perversion and cruelty exists in the world. It would exist in any secular as well as religious institution. The factors though seem to become magnified when much of this sexual abuse has some direct correlation to the so-called discipline of celibacy.

Nichols' forced lukewarm remarks to prosecution according to degree of severity sounds like it came straight out of a USCCB Public Relations response manual.

This overflow of dysfunctionality of the RC church over the sex issue has stems and roots going everywhere. Indeed, a once great and pervasive institution like the RC church and its faults flow over into the secular side of the town square. The other distasteful part of the sexual dysfunction has to do with trying to impose Catholic Sharia Law on the United States in regards to birth control in general and abortion in particular. (Notice I said once great.)

Back to the Ryan Report and the British press. Some comments in the same and different Brit papers about some lady who wrote an article about how she did not know any pedophile priests and therefore did not feel qualified to talk or write on the subject related to the Ryan Report. Hack journalism. Fill the space – type, type, type.

One journalist below makes reference to that strange apologist for the situation past and present in the RC church. Laura Canning also makes some sound closing remarks about what most of us, Catholic or not, feel in general about this cancer on Christianity.

Missing the point on paedophile priests

“Blame the individuals, not the religion" and "there are paedophiles in all walks of life" are two common apologist statements on sexual abuse within the Catholic church, both of which miss the point as spectacularly as Mary Kenny. It was not just the abuse, but the denials, cover-ups, removal of known paedophiles to other parishes where they could rape more children that is a major part of the problem. The Christian Brothers delayed the investigation that became the Ryan report for over a year, arguing successfully that all members referred to in the report had a right to anonymity, even when these members had been convicted in court of abuse.

The other main apologist statement is the assertion that "things are not like that any more", that allegations of sexual abuse or paedophile priests are taken seriously by the church and that all those working with children are now vetted. Like the previous two, this statement does not hold water. It was "like that" for decades, with thousands of children damaged for life.

What is so difficult for the church and its apologists to admit that this was a terrible scandal and to try and put things right? Surely anyone within the church today would be horrified at these cases and take every step they could to ensure that the institution's reputation is not damaged further, even if only for reasons of pragmatism? But no. The pope is always right, priests can do no wrong, and raped and abused children do not matter.

Perhaps The Ryan Report, a secular report, is the laxative the RC church needs to wake up, smell the roses – get out of the seeming back street sex shop and brothel business – and get back to the message and teachings of Jesus to be spread to the whole world and to all time.