Heil Pontiff!

Member Hitler's Youth, Anti-Aircraft Personnel Nazi Army, Deserter Nazi Army, Head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (that's the branch in charge of Inquisitions for those of you keeping score), God's Rotweiler, once denied being "the Grand Inquisitor". . .Is this simply a list of things I hope never to be on my resume?

No, it represents the qualifications to be Pope.

Is there anything to like about this guy?

Well, perhaps he will bring a new age of reason by pointing out the folly of it all. Nah, too logical.

Is it really time to take a step backwards when you are just reconciling mistakes from 350 years ago?

Fun Facts:
The last execution by the Spanish Inquisition was of schoolmaster, Cayetano Ripoll, July 26, 1826. His trial lasted nearly two years. He was accused of being a deist.

de·ism (dē'ĭz'əm, dā'-) n.- The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

discordianism n. - the veneration of Eris (a.k.a. Discordia) -- the goddess of chaos, discord and confusion.

Galileo Galilei died under house arrest in the fledgling Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Galileo's achievements include: demonstrating that the velocities of falling bodies are not proportional to their weights; showing that the path of a projectile is a parabola; building the first astronomical telescope; coming up with the ideas behind Newton's laws of motion; and confirming the Copernican theory of the solar system. He was denounced for heretical views by the church in Rome, tried by the Inquisition, and forced to renounce his belief that the planets revolved around the sun.

The Vatican officially recognized the validity of Galileo's work in 1993.

Come Again?

Yesterday I saw a monster sized SUV with a "Powered by Jesus" bumper sticker and a Disney license plate frame. I wondered whether the driver was aware that Walt's cryogenically preserved corpse has the better shot at resurrection.

Baseball Towns

I'd always wondered how a town becomes a baseball town, or a football town. For Los Angeles it wasn't a matter of choice. Football left town, hockey closed down, the Lakers imploded like a supernova and the baseball teams happened to get pretty good. It is either become a baseball fan, or do something truly god awful like rooting for SC.

Now I understand.

Death, Death, and Oranges

That and some nifty culinary tips about oranges were in the news today. I did not realize that zest should only come from the very top skin of the orange. No wonder my zest was always too zesty.

Ding Dong

The pope is dead. You have to wonder how he feels if a lifetime of chastity really wasn't required to get into heaven. Worse yet, St. Peter is probably an old Jewish guy angry as hell about this Christianity thing taking the direction it has. Poor Pope.

What the Fuck Does It Require?

Hillary Clinton is talking up the Conservative Agenda:

Destroying the Party to Save It

Senator Hillary Clinton keeps moving to the Right.

Clinton made news a few months ago when she urged pro-choice people to find common ground with anti-choice people in the abortion struggle--even though the anti-choice side has been rejecting the common ground of contraception for decades, and now rejects emergency contraception as well.

Clinton's latest attempt to prove she's a Republican is her call for a system rating sex and violence in video games, TV, and other entertainment for children. Three weeks ago she joined two of the most viciously anti-child, anti-education, and anti-sexuality senators (Brownback, R-KS and Santorum, R-PA) in calling for the government to study the impact of media on childhood development.

Two years ago, we quoted Santorum as saying that the Constitution does not grant a right to privacy (#39). On the eve of the historic Lawrence decision, he said that if the Supreme Court acknowledges a right to gay sex in the home, "then you have the right to bigamy, incest, adultery...man on child, man on dog, or whatever."

Brownback, of course, recently convened Congressional hearings about "porn addiction"--which somehow didn't include any sex therapists, or anyone challenging the concept itself. Just last week he convened hearings on regulating the porn industry without inviting any representatives of the $9 billion industry.

According to The New York Times, Clinton is increasingly referring to faith and prayer in her speeches. Along with other 2008 Democratic presidential contenders such as Joe Biden and John Edwards, she's stressing the importance of national security over education and health care--even though a March Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 53% of Americans think the Iraq war is not worth fighting, and 57% disagree with President Bush's handling of it.

Clinton apparently believes that it's more important to get elected than to stand for something. She seems to be willing to destroy the Democratic Party in order to save it. We think it's a poor strategy: if voters want a Republican, they'll go get a sincere one, not a fake one.


--End Quote

Fuck all the people who try to cowtow to people that believe in toppling sovereign nations simply because they won't toe the line.

This is America. We are about freedom, not oppression. Fight for your rights!