“The problem is not in Muslims,” he continues. “The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to.”

These are all dangerous words. Of the threats issued to his life by Islamists, he says, “That’s not the worst thing that can happen to you. I’m OK with it, I’m not afraid. . . . Palestinians have reason to kill me. Some Israelis may want to kill me. My goal is not to defeat my enemy. It is to win over my enemy.”

from the Wall Street Journal

Lyrics to Angry Anthem by The Forces of Evil

If I had my way, I’d never speak to anyone again
I gotta say, I hate people I’m so sick of them
I just can’t stand the bullshit I wish I was so far away from it
I’m just stupid and I’m angry is it immature for me to say

Fuck all you Motherfuckers
Fuck all you Motherfuckers
Fuck all you Motherfuckers
FUCK YOU!
Fuck all you Motherfuckers
Fuck all you Motherfuckers
Fuck all you Motherfuckers
FUCK YOU!

I feel so lame, ’cause that’s the best I can do to express myself
It’s always the same, say the “F” word maybe that’ll help
I’m so sick of trying to fit in, I don’t even know where to begin
I got friends but they don’t know me,
but I’d tell the world to blow me

[Chorus]

And there’s just one more thing that, I have just got to sing ya
Everyone and everything FUCK YOU!

[Chorus]

Spread the love.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/angry-anthem/id308103398?i=308103490

Shit happens, and bad choices happen, and the two are frequently causal. Interestingly, the more bad choices you make, the more shit happens.  Ergo, if a friend goes to his friend’s in your new car, drinks 3-4 generous drinks an hour, and then takes off in your new SUV (OK, this story is about my car), then he has certainly made a bad choice… and so have I.  Well, guess what this genius didn’t clue in on: he is driving an unfamiliar vehicle, drunk, and might not drive well… because he’s drunk.  He did hit someone from behind.  Cops came.  Arrested his ass and threw him in jail.  Impounded my car ($9,000 damage).  He basically refused to cooperate.  Guess what… automatic one-year license suspension and virtually guaranteed DUI conviction ($2000-4,000 either way just to defend).

Several bad choices above, but it NEVER EVER fails.  Make good choices (not godly choices)… just smart, moral choices, and good things will tend to happen.  That’s very karma-like, and it works.  There are exceptions, but it’s not God doing anything one way or the other.  Several people had the power to prevent this problem or change the outcome, and it’s not God working in a mysterious way.

Don’t let this happen to a friend or family member this holiday season or ever.  Don’t let people drink and then drive.  Give them a bed or a cab.  It’s just the right thing to do.  We are lucky that the douche nozzle in my story didn’t kill anyone.  Relatively minor damage, but $16,000 in repairs and legal fees later (and 30 days of work release jail) is a tough lesson.  Don’t live that way.  This “friend” is someone that I can’t just walk away from (unfortunately), so I am stuck helping him.

Ironically, or not, the major tool in this story is a Christian.  He drowns his sorrows in booze regularly because he can’t make sense of a fucked up world that God doesn’t seem to care about and he has thoroughly wrecked his life….  well, no shit.  Easier to blame the bastard deity that did it versus your own dumb ass and poor choices.

Hope to write more on these real world things in 2010.  Still trying to get the game plan together.  Hang in there, and if you ARE out there, please comment.  I haven’t a clue what you folks are interested in talking about….

It’s been an interesting year for me…  Next year I want to open up more via this blog.  Seems the best blogs to me are the ones where people reveal a little about themselves and their life experience.  I like several “link puke” blogs, but I really like the ones where people have something to say or something to share that I might learn something from their point of view, or at least be entertained!

Many things that took place in my life this year will allow me to open up more next year, to my readers, and to my family.  I hope you have a happy, healthy, prosperous next year, and if you care one way or the other, please let me know.  I promise to be interesting, if you promise to tell me when I suck.  All the best…  Hugh.

Ireland: Our priests teach us how to lie

Such hairsplitting is repugnant even if the liar weren’t a priest, said Vincent Browne in The Sunday Business Post.

Vincent Browne

The Sunday Business Post

It’s official: We now have Catholic doctrine on how to lie, said Vincent Browne. A damning government report on sexual abuse by the clergy shows that Archbishop Desmond Connell covered up for the abusive priests under his authority, even lying to investigators. But Connell claims that these lies were not really lies because he had a “mental reservation” about what he was saying.

As he put it, “You can use an ambiguous expression, realizing that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be.” So, for example, when asked whether he had paid off a victim of one of his abusive priests, Connell answered that diocese funds “are not used” for that purpose. By using the present tense, he reasons, he wasn’t excluding the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such a purpose in the past. It’s the same defense Bill Clinton used when he invoked the definition of “is.” Similarly, when a female victim complained that Connell was lying when he said he had cooperated in the investigation of her case, he countered that he never stipulated that he had cooperated “fully.”

Such hairsplitting is repugnant even if the liar weren’t a priest. “And these guys presume to lecture the rest of us on morality?”

A longer version of his column is here:

Vatican cannot escape blame in abuse scandal

06 December 2009

By Vincent Browne

The cynical indifference by Irish Catholic bishops to the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by their brother priests is not the full story, by any means. The culpability of the leadership of the Catholic Church at the Vatican is part of that fuller story, as I hope to demonstrate.

Clerical child sex abuse is only a small part of the scarifying phenomenon of child sex abuse in Ireland.

However, let’s examine the culpability of the Vatican authorities and its indifference to the welfare of children. Desmond Connell became Catholic archbishop of Dublin in 1988. Twelve years later he was singled out to hold the second-most prestigious position in the Catholic Church, that of cardinal.

It is not believable that, from 1988 to 2000, when Connell was appointed cardinal, the Church authorities in Rome had no idea how he handled (or rather, mishandled) clerical sex abuses cases here, and how he had lied about at least one of these cases.

The case in which clearly he lied concerned the courageous victim Andrew Madden, and the priest, Ivan Payne.

Payne was a serial child abuser who abused at least 31 people.

Madden made a complaint about Payne in 1981, claiming that Payne had sexually abused him for five years. The Church authorities knew of the abuse from 1981 onwards but, essentially, nothing was done.

In 1989, Madden repeated his complaint, this time to an auxiliary bishop, and asked why Payne had been moved to another parish where he might well abuse again.

Neither this auxiliary bishop nor Connell made any effort to enquire into the grounds of the complaint to determine whether Payne remained a danger to children.

Madden threatened legal proceedings against Payne in March 1992. Madden wrote to Connell in April 1993 complaining about the delay in settling the case. Connell instructed the diocesan solicitors to offer Payne financial assistance to settle the case. A settlement was reached the following month.

In 1994, Madden went to the media, first on the Gay Byrne radio programme. The case got widespread publicity.

Connell went on radio in May 1995 and said, in relation to the handling of clerical child sex abuse cases: ‘‘I have compensated nobody, I have paid nobody.” He went onto say that the finances of the diocese ‘‘are not used in any way’’ to make settlements in civil actions concerning clerical child abuse. Madden exposed this claim as a lie.

On October 4, 1995, I wrote in a newspaper column, in reference to Connell’s statements quoted above: ‘‘We now know that each of these statements is essentially misleading. Archbishop Connell provided £27,000 to compensate a clerical child abuser victim and, in doing so, the finances of the diocese were used in a particular way to make a settlement.

‘‘But not just that. We also know that Archbishop Connell failed to report the commission of a crime to the Garda, in spite of a legal obligation to do so. Connell knew that a crime had been committed because he had made £27,000 available to the priest to make a settlement for the crime.

‘‘We also know that the priest in question was given some form of therapeutic assistance, after which he was proclaimed fit to resume pastoral work.

‘‘If no crime had been committed, then what was this therapy for and, if it was for something unconnected with the crime, why was it mentioned in this connection?”

I do not claim any special insight.

My purpose in quoting myself is simply to show how there was widespread appreciation at the time that Connell had failed to report a crime to the Garda and had lied about making funds available to compensate a victim of clerical abuse and had failed quickly to move a priest from a parish, who he had every reason to believe was a child sex abuser.

If I and several others, including the dogs in the street, knew about this at the time, is it believable that the Vatican did not know about it?

Neither is it believable that they knew nothing about any of the other cases which he mishandled during that period from 1988 to 2000.

When the proposal arose – I assume some time in early 2000 – of appointing Connell to the College of Cardinals, one assumes rudimentary checks were made to determine the suitability of the appointment.

One assumes the Papal Nuncio – and perhaps some other bishops in Ireland – would have been consulted.

Is it plausible that none of them would have mentioned to the Vatican anything about the Payne case and the lie which Connell told in that connection?

Assuming that such mention was made, isn’t it likely that further enquiries would have been made into how Connell had handled other clerical sex abuses cases since his appointment as archbishop in 1988?

If the Papal Nuncio made no such report and not a single bishop did so, doesn’t that in itself say something about the institutional Catholic Church?

More likely, the Vatican was aware all along about the ‘‘mental reservation’’ and the cover-ups, and saw absolutely no reason why that should disbar Connell from the College of Cardinals, because the sexual abuse of a few children is a trifling matter in the panoply of power and importance of the church.

One final reflection. This quite proper outrage over the bishops and the cover-ups and the lies disguises a larger phenomenon.

The incidence of child sex abuse in Ireland is enormous.

According to that Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) report of 2002, around 320,000 people were raped in childhood, and there is little reason to believe the incidence of child rape has diminished.

The incidence of child rape among the clergy is certainly greater than among the population at large, but only about 4 per cent of child rapes have been perpetrated by the clergy.

The government shows no interest at all, aside from the odd photo opportunity.

sbpost@iol.ie

I would guess this is about par for the last couple of thousand years.

The comment:

Religion has been used as a tool to legitimize and uphold the social order for thousands of years. If you don’t believe me just look at the role of religion in ancient Egypt where the Pharaoh was regarded as a living God. People are inherently selfish and self-interested and I’ve discovered first hand that religious people are no less selfish than atheists; they are simply less honest about it ….

Fantastically well done.  How have I not seen it before?!  I ended up spending two hours there.  Way cool.  Check it out.