Early opinions on the Pope's visit

Pope blames society for sex scandal

THE Pope yesterday berated US bishops for their poor handling of the child sex scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, but laid part of the blame on the breakdown of values in US society.

He told a gathering of bishops they had "sometimes very badly handled" the problem of pedophile priests.
But, rather than blame the church, he pointed to a breakdown in the values underpinning society. "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" he said.

He praised the bishops' efforts to heal the wounds from the scandal, angering victim support groups.
Barbara Dorris, from Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said: "Five years ago, US bishops begrudgingly adopted some minimal promises on paper.

"There's no evidence to suggest they have had any real impact."

more at http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23557180-663,00.html

Her full comments are available here http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=10947

Victims Call on Pope to Appropriately Address Sex Abuse Scandal
A support group for victims of clergy sex gathered in Washington, DC for the pope's visit to demand that he hold bishops and cardinals accountable for concealing sex crimes committed by priests. Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) denounced the pope's speech in which he criticized the way the scandal was handled. SNAP says that the pope's criticism is not enough; he must act.

Barbara Dorris, SNAP outreach director, issued a statement saying, "Five years ago, US bishops paltry, begrudgingly adopted some minimal promises on paper. There's no evidence to suggest they've had any real impact and it's terribly naïve to assume that's the case. Child sex crimes and cover-ups have plagued the church for decades, and the church is an ancient, rigid, secretive, all-male hierarchy that moves at a glacial pace. No one who truly understands institutional behavior could believe that centuries-old patterns can be undone in a few short years."

Victims are demanding a change in Catholic canon law requiring priests who commit crimes against children to be immediately defrocked. They are also demanding disciplinary action against bishops and cardinals who enable abuse to continue by covering it up.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the website Bishop Accountability, told the New York Times, "Rather than shifting attention to pedophile priests, he needs to focus on the culpability of bishops. The crisis occurred because many U.S. bishops were willing to hide their priests' crimes from the police with lies."

Another good comment:

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said the sex abuse crisis is not over. "The pope must focus now not on soothing words and vague pledges, but on tangible action to prevent abuse," he said. "Saying pedophile priests are bad fixes nothing. Disciplining complicit bishops prevents more abuse."

And, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that Ratzinger was complicit with the Vatican protecting some priests, including continuing to shelter Cardinal Bernard Law so that he can't be extradited back to the US to face trials. CBS covered the story years ago here http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/06/eveningnews/main566978.shtml

The 40-year-old confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests - anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church.

As one commenter on these sites so succintly put it:

If any country leaders had a spine, they would charge the Catholic Church as a criminal organization with conspiracy to commit child abuse.

I guess at this point, I need a little humor to help take the edge off http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-New-Rules-April-11-2008

...<snip>
And, finally, New Rule: Whenever you combine a secretive compound, religion and weirdos in pioneer outfits, there's going to be some child-f*cking going on. In fact, whenever a cult leader sets himself up as "God's infallible wing man" here on earth, lock away the kids.

Which is why I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound. And this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. [photo of the Pope shown]

That's right. The Pope is coming to America this week, and, ladies, he's single! Now, I know what you're thinking: "Bill, you can't be saying that the Catholic Church is no better than this creepy Texas cult! For one thing, altar boys can't even get pregnant."

But, really, what tripped up the "little cult on the prairie" was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. Cults get raided. Religions get parades. How does the Catholic Church get away with all of their buggery? VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME!

If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you "Pope."

It's like if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat, but if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns, and we bail you out. And that's who the Catholic Church is, the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia. Too big to fail.

When the - when the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney - he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the statute of limitations ran out. And that's the Church's attitude: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it."

Which is fine. Far be it from me to criticize religion. But, just remember one thing: if the Pope was, instead of a religious figure, merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of daycare centers where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say, "Who wants to touch Mister Wiggle?"

FOX News' Journalistic Integrity?

Outsourcing the government is a BAD idea

Yes we know about the horrors of Halliburton and Blackwater but many don't realize how much our government is being "privitized" -- aka. sold to the highest bidder. Not only do no-bid contracts guarantee that we are overpaying but we are doubly blessed with lesser service that comes with virtually no accountability.

As the Washington Post recently reported:

Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. The Government Accountability Office [GAO] found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion.

$295 billion wasted. To put in perspective, Bush vetoed more health insurance for kids supposedly because $35 billion -- $7 billion a year over 5 years -- was too much to spend.
Presiding over a wasteful defense budget is not a "strong on defense" position. It is, however, a conservative position.

Part of the problem is rooted in the fundamental conservative belief that government is bad, and key government functions should be privatized.

UN says "Human Rights, not important"

Incredibly, spines are hard to come by in today's society. Case in point, the UN has allowed themselves to be ruled by convenience and fear of economic consequence by allowing Islamic states to rule that Freedom of Expression will no longer protect anyone who, for example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran. They must have a different meaning of the word "Freedom" -- something meaning quite the opposite. There's more here but here's a sample:

Don't exercise your right to freedom of expression because your opponents may become violent. For the first time in the 60 year history of UN Human Rights bodies, a fundamental human right has been limited simply because of the possible violent reaction by the enemies of human rights.

The violence we have seen played out in reaction to the Danish cartoons is thus excused by the Council – it was the cartoonists whose freedom of expression needed to be regulated. And Theo van Gogh can be deemed responsible for his own death.

Freedom of expression is that right which – uniquely – enables us to expose, communicate and condemn abuse of all our other rights. Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press we give the green light to tyranny and make it impossible to expose corruption, incompetence, injustice and oppression.

George Carlin - Fear of Germs

It's sad how wimpy Americans have become, especially when it comes to any risk whatsoever -- take germs, for example (you can listen along here):

Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this country? Have you noticed this? The media constantly running stories about all the latest infections? Salmonella, E-coli, hanta virus, bird flu, and Americans will panic easily so everybody's running around scrubbing this and spraying that and overcooking their food and repeatedly washing their hands, trying to avoid all contact with germs. It's ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths.

In prisons, before they give you lethal injection, they swab your arm with ALCOHOL. Wouldn't want some guy to go to hell AND be sick.Fear of germs, why these fuckin' pussies. You can't even get a decent hamburger anymore they cook the shit out of everything now 'cause everyone's afraid of FOOD POISONING! Hey, wheres you sense of adventure? Take a fuckin' chance will you? Hey you know how many people die of food poisoning in this country? Nine thousand, thats all, its a minor risk.

Take a fuckin' chance bunch of goddamn pussies.Besides, what d'ya think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice, it needs germs to practice on. So if you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit?! I'll tell you what your gonna do ... you're gonna get sick. You're gonna die and your gonna deserve it because you're fucking weak and you got a fuckin' weak immune system!

Let me tell you a true story about immunization ok. When I was a little boy in New York city in the nineteen-forties, we swam in the Hudson river. And it was filled with raw sewage! OK? We swam in raw sewage, you know, to cool off. And at that time the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know something? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one! EVER! You know why? Cause WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE! It strengthened our immune system, the polio never had a prayer. We were tempered in raw shit!

So personally I never take any precautions against germs. I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough. I don't wipe off the telephone, I don't cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor I pick it up and eat it!Even if I'm at side walk cafe! IN CALCUTTA! THE POOR SECTION! ON NEW YEARS MORNING DURING A SOCCER RIOT! And you know something? In spite of all the so called "risky behavior ".... I never get infections. I don't get em. I don't get colds, I don't get flu, I don't get headaches, I don't get upset stomach, And you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system! And it gets a lot of practice!

My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic military assault rifles, with night vision and laser scopes. And we have recently acquired phosphorous grenades, cluster bombs and anti personnel fragmentation mines.

So, when my white blood cells are on patrol reconnoitering my blood stream seeking out strangers and other undesirables, and if they see any, ANY, suspicious looking germs of any kind, THEY DON'T. FUCK. AROUND. They whip out the weapons, they wax the motherfucker and deposit the unlucky fellow directly into my colon! Into my colon. There's no nonsense! There's no miranda warning, there's none of that three strikes and your out bullshit. First defense, BAM! Into the colon you go!

-- George Carlin

Friday Flotsam

First some humor to take the edge off:
http://www.955klos.com/messagewall.asp?id=4118

The 9 Manliest Names in the World
http://www.cracked.com/article_14982_9-manliest-names-in-world.html

It's tough being a veterinarian in Taiwan:
from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/06/content_7209538_12.htm

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YIKES!

Hacked Through The Heart And You're To Blame
Researchers have demonstrated that implantable defibrillators and pacemakers can be hacked from the outside leading to all manner of undesirable outcomes.

It's not surprising that implantable devices such as these are programmable through a wireless interface. Allowing a physician to do so is far preferable to opening the patient up just to change settings. But it's also not surprising that the wireless interfaces and programming protocols were not sufficiently hardened against deliberate attack. Such attacks could, theoretically, either cause the device to shock or mistime, but also could deplete the battery.

The researchers also studied potential defenses against such attacks and is encouraging about them. They also stress repeatedly that these are theoretical attacks and that patients with such devices should not be concerned at this point.

The authors of this study did the hard research, but the basic approach to body hacking was suggested by Gadi Evron far earlier. As Evron suggested, devices like pacemakers are just the primitive foot in the door of our bodies. In 2040 we may be much more bionic, and we'll need to know that our electronic parts are secure.

A Life That Matters

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end. It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave. What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone. What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters.

Michael Josephson

I want to see this documentary

No water? That seems important! Kinda makes global warming and peak oil seem more like an annoyance, doesn't it?
Blue Gold : World Water Wars

$6,000,000,000,000

Wow, that's a lot of samoleans! Yes, that's $6 TRILLION in what used to be strong American bonafide greenbacks. If this confuses some Brits who have a totally different definition for "trillion" -- so to be clear, let's just say it's way too much f-ing money to be in debt. I'm sure that the Brits also see this as the beginning of the common pattern denoting the fall of a civilization. Since every major civilization has waned, many think that America is starting its downward fall. I hope that we're wise enough to do something about it -- but I'm not particularly sanguine.

But back to the main point, $6 TRILLION dollars is also apparently what the Reagan and Bush years have cost all of us Americans. I originally saw this stat somewhere else, but here's a bit of sugar to help it go down a little easier.

More signs that corporations ARE the problem

Perhaps Obama isn't as clear as Nader, Kucinich or Edwards on the problems caused by unfettered corporations -- but he's not bad either. I expect that he's ahead of Hillary on this and I'm sure that we know in whose pockets McCain is deeply ensconced. Check out this great quote that I lifted from TIME:

Senator Barack Obama issued the following statement today in response to reports that two Countrywide executives, who are accused of exacerbating the ongoing home mortgage crisis, are slated to receive multi-million dollar payouts tied to the company’s performance during their tenure:

“All across this country, we’ve seen how it’s becoming harder and harder for working families to make ends meet. That’s because for far too long, the rules in our economy have been written to benefit Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

“We saw this again today when we learned that two executives at Countrywide, the nation’s top subprime lender, are set to walk away with nearly $20 million in payouts. This is an outrage. Top mortgage lenders spent $185 million in recent years lobbying Washington to look the other way, while they tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, forcing millions of Americans to face foreclosure and pushing our economy toward recession.

“These executives crossed the line to boost their bottom line. We should be reprimanding them, not rewarding them. Rewarding their bad behavior just encourages others to pursue the same kinds of irresponsible practices that led us into this financial mess in the first place.

“That’s why nearly two years ago, I introduced legislation to treat those who commit mortgage fraud like the criminals they are. And it’s why in a speech last week, I called for realigning incentives and compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders.

“We have to restore balance to our economy, and make sure that we have rules of the road that work for ordinary Americans, not just the wealthy and well-connected. And that’s what we’ll do when I’m President of the United States.”

Let's Make a Deal

I'm sure that you've all heard of the famous Monty Hall puzzle -- if not, Wikipedia can help. You can also play the game here if like many others (including some mathematicians) you don't buy into the logic of it. Let me know if you're still unconvinced as I'm happy to help. I'll play Monty and will pay you $1.50 for each time you win and only charge you $1 for each loss -- cause I'm a giver. :)

Restore the rule of law!

Naomi Wolf offers a good wake-up call on our rapid downhill slide to losing all that defines America. She points out how painfully clear it is that our civil liberties are being eviscerated:

The rest of the world is agog at our inaction as what makes us Americans is being set aflame; and they are more scared of what an unsheathed US could do to the rest of the world than we are. Our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values.

... and on which candidate most clearly gets it:

Remember: when activists started to push hard to raise awareness of the dangers of torture and indefinite detention, many on the Hill were scared to join the fight because it was then politically unpopular. But to me, if you are not really against torture -- always and under every political change in climate, and let us note that former torture victim and prisoner of war John McCain shamefully dropped his fight against the torture loopholes in the law as well -- then you are not really, in my view, fit to be an American President.

Gender has nothing to do with it. Race has nothing to do with it.

Integrity has something to do with it.

That is why Barack Obama has my vote. Of all the leading candidates, he is the only one on these issues who has consistently acted like a true American.

Speaking of religious freedom...

So here's a good example of what happens when we don't maintain the critically important wall separating church and state:

A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world's largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word "abortion," concealing nearly 25,000 search results.

Bush's War - Frontline

PBS's latest Frontline 2-part episode on Bush's War is great. It's a must-see, as they say. Wow!

Religious Freedom - this sounds important, right?

It's not only more important that you might think but current forces AGAINST religious freedom are having a very insidious effect in all levels of our goverment and society as well. Click here for more.

First Freedom First is a grass-roots organization trying to emphasize the critical importance of the First Amendment and how our liberties are being eroded. They have a pretty good video on several of these topics -- you can skip through the slow parts. They also have an interesting list of some very important questions that no one is asking our current government officials. I'd love to hear Clinton, Obama and McCain answer them:

1. Leaders on the religious right often say that America is a “Christian Nation.” Do you agree with this statement?
2. Do you think Houses of Worship should be allowed to endorse political candidates and retain their tax exempt status?
3. Do you think public schools should sponsor school prayer or, as a parent, should this choice be left to me?
4. Would you support a law that mandates teaching creationism in my child’s public school science classes?
5. Do you think my pharmacist should be allowed to deny me doctor-prescribed medications based on his or her religious beliefs?
6. Will you respect the rights of those in our diverse communities of faith who deem same-gender marriage to be consistent with their religious creed?
7. Should “faith-based” charities that receive public funds be allowed to discriminate against employees or applicants based on religious beliefs?
8. Do you think one's right to disbelieve in God is protected by the same laws that protect someone else's right to believe?
9. Do you think everyone’s religious freedom needs to be protected by what Thomas Jefferson called “a wall of separation” between church and state?
10. What should guide our policies on public health and medical research: science or religion?