Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
VATICAN: Not in control...
The pope gave his year-end speech to the cardinals recently.
He said the Roman Catholic Church must reflect on what is wrong with its message and practices that allowed for the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests.
He is basically saying he doesn’t know how such a thing could happen and how do we prevent it from happening again.
This is pretty pitiful for these old guys who pretend they speak for God and try to tell us how to live our lives. They can’t figure out how to fix their own house but they are telling us what to do with our house?
Is the pope saying that the Church really does not know why pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood?
Why don’t you ask your God to help you since you have a direct line to him or does he not know either?
Here are a bunch of very old guys, dressed up as clowns, admitting that they are not in control but still have the power to excommunicate a nun for doing the right thing for those under her care…
CATHOLIC CHURCH: Absurd in Phoenix and dangerous...
Just when I thought the Catholic Church could not get any more absurd I run into the headline “NUN EXCOMMUNICATED AFTER SAVING A MOTHER’S LIFE WITH ABORTION”.
Picture the scene: a 27 year old mother of FOUR and in her 11th week of pregnancy comes in with pulmonary hypertension. The choice is simple; either let the mother and fetus die or abort the 3 month-old fetus and let the mother of FOUR children live to take care of them.
To me this is not even a decision I would spend a second thinking about because it is so god-damn simple but Sister Margaret McBride, the senior administrator of St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in Phoenix , Arizona
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix
The bishop said that the mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s; this even though the 11 week old fetus could never survive on its own. It seems the bishop would have preferred the mother and fetus to both die instead of allowing an abortion to save a mother who has four (4) children at home…see why my blood boils?
People immediately started commenting that it has taken many years for sexually abusive priests to be even reprimanded, let alone excommunicated and yet the bishop moved quickly to excommunicate a nun for doing what was the right thing to do; pedophile priests continue to receive communion but not a nun who has dedicated her life to her religion and her community and actually helped the sick and the poor, to be denied the sacraments is just despicable and incomprehensible.
Sister Margaret has been removed from her duties but many doctors at the hospital continue to write the papers and whoever will listen to them calling her “saintly’ and a great asset to the hospital, her religion and those in need but to no avail.
This is what I am talking about when I say that these old shit heads in the church hierarchy are out of touch with reality, out of touch with human beings, out of touch with normal life.
For these demented men to have power over others, over a religion they have made a laughing stock of the world is down right criminal. These so-called representatives of Jesus on earth are not only incompetent but they are dangerous. Many have said that Sister Margaret did Jesus’ work on earth while the Bishop wiled away his time in Rome
I hope Catholics around the world take note of what happened here and think very hard about where the religion is heading and then make some noise instead of bowing their heads and remaining silent like the sheep they have become.
PS: The hospital can no longer call itself Catholic.
PS: The hospital can no longer call itself Catholic.
Friday, December 17, 2010
HEALTHCARE: Reform is unconstitutional?
Image via WikipediaIn Obama’s plan to reform our healthcare system, everyone must have health insurance. People that cannot afford health insurance will get subsidized coverage.
The reason that this is vital to the plan’s success is that the problem we now have with the healthcare system is the millions of people that have no health insurance but get treated for free in expensive emergency rooms who, by law, have to treat them. Who pays the billions spent on this free care; the people that are insured…us…and therein lies the problem.
Attorney Generals (Republicans) in 20 states have filed law suits in federal court charging that to force people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. They are doing this not because they give a shit about the welfare of the people who would benefit from Obama’s health reform plan, no it is just stupid-ass politics…because they are Republican and Obama is a Democrat.
Many judges have dismissed these suits but there is always one that will want to get their name in the paper. I am confident this suit will make its way to the Supreme Court which should prove very interesting.
Obviously, the Constitution does not say a damn thing about health insurance or health reform; the judges will have to invent reasons for or against, depending on how they translate the intent of the Constitution. This is similar to how different people interpret the Bible; same words, different interpretation.
If the courts decide that the government cannot legally require people to have health insurance than one thing MUST happen to make our healthcare system viable; hospitals, ERs and clinics must have the legal right to turn people without health insurance away. That is correct, let them die in the streets or more kindly, let them go to charity clinics.
Before you judge me severe remember the logic behind requiring people to have health insurance and remember that even people that can not afford the insurance will be taken care of; there is no excuse not to demand full coverage for everyone.
The plan has been tried in Massachusetts so there is precedent but if the Republicans have a better plan, let’s hear it but we all know they have shit; they are all about politics and damn the people’s well being.
DETROIT: Kwame took millions but is broke?
It appears that the FBI has been working on corruption in Detroit
Although RICO was primarily to get at the Mafia, it is now used on all sorts of crimes.
The one thing that irked me in this whole process is that Kwame is getting a court appointed lawyer (paid by us) because he is claiming he is broke. He ain’t getting just the next lawyer on the list; he is getting a highly paid lawyer.
If we use simple logic here, a person that has been collection millions of dollars in kick-backs is now broke? How does the court know he is broke since Kwame has proven over and over again that he is a lying sack of shit?
The fact that this whole process of asking for and getting a court appointed attorney is a secret process, bothers me. Kwame has no rights to privacy; he is a convicted felon. We have every right to know why he is getting free legal defense; it’s our money!
Court officials have stated that the process works and they should be trusted to do the right thing…well I don’t trust anyone anymore, especially organizations that are suppose to know what the hell they are doing.
Look at the federal police monitor appointed by the federal court to monitor the Detroit Police Department to make sure its practices were legal. Hell, the monitor slept with Kwame and billed the city for millions and did absolutely nothing for those millions. She would still be collecting her millions if crazy Kwame’s text messages were not made public, revealing his sexual liaison with the federal monitor. The city is now wanting its money back – good luck with that!
What about the Detroit Water Department? The department has been under federal court oversight for 30 years. All sorts of lawyers were making bunches of money supposedly making sure that everything at the department was kosher – hell, they were stealing money right under their noses and we are suppose to trust the courts to do their job…bullshit. The suburbs, which use Detroit water, are now joining forces to take the department away from Detroit
I say use the Freedom of Information Act to get the info on how exactly it was determined that Kwame was broke and needed a court appointed (expensive) lawyer. Same goes for Kwame’s father who also pocketed millions and any other scum bag that has been ripping off the city for years.
IT'S OUR MONEY AND WE DESERVE TO KNOW HOW IT'S BEING SPENT!
PS. Monica Conyers took bribes and has a rich husband in the U.S. House of Representatives and we still paid for her lawyer.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
SNOW, SNOW, SNOW: Only the 12th of December?
First real snow of the season and it is only the 12th of December. This baby looks like it will stay for awhile. Wonder how the rest of the winter will be?
CATHOLICISM: Poland turning secular...
An article in today’s New York Times was titled: “Poland
This caught my eye since I was raised in the Polish Catholic faith and have been to Poland , on business and pleasure, many, many times and have observed, first hand, Catholicism in Poland
When I travelled to Poland
Church construction was ludicrous with churches standing only blocks from one another in cities such as Warsaw
I also learned that the church in Poland
Today’s article talks about the 108 foot statue of Jesus just build in Poland (bigger than the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro Poland
Today, 95% of Poles call themselves Catholic but only 40% attend Sunday mass regularly. In large cities, the percentage is closer to 20%.
There is a strong anti-clerical sentiment in the country. People resent the church’s role in politics and in social issues like in-vitro fertilization which the church wants banned and the people want available.
A cute quote from the article: “I think most people would say their priest is a drunkard, that he is corrupt, that he takes too much money from weddings, that he bought himself a fancy car…”
Anti-church sentiment is so strong that one JANUSZ PALIKOT has formed a political party based largely on an anti-clerical platform…imagine that; its not about clerical sexual abuse, its about clerical power gone too far.
I am glad Poland
ESTATE TAX: A Tax on Death?
All this crap going on in Washington
It started out simple enough; do we keep the Bush tax cuts or not. Simple answer should have been that raising taxes in a depression is not smart economics, so keep them.
The Democrats, being the Robin Hoods that they are, said OK but not for the wealthy or those making $250,000 and above. Well, $250,000 does not make anyone wealthy in this day and age so why not tax the people making $500,000 or more? That would be a compromise that would make sense…but no.
Obama made a deal with the Republicans to keep all the tax cuts but allow unemployment benefits to continue for another year on top of the 2 years already in place. The Republicans said yes even knowing that those unemployment benefits are keeping people from looking for work and actually increasing our unemployment rate and I have personal evidence to prove this is so.
OK now both sides have something they want but still no because Obama agreed to an estate tax deal and on this issue the Democrats who leave at the end of this month, stopped everything cold in its tracks…why?
Let me explain estate taxes / inheritance tax and why they piss me off. Let’s say I work my ass off all my life and died leaving my estate or whatever money I made in my life to my children. I paid taxes on everything I made so the government should be satisfied…NO. The government wants 55% of that estate leaving my children with 45% of MY money.
We call this the “death tax” because it is a tax on someone’s death like a penalty for dying.
In 2010, the estate tax was at zero ($0) and Republicans want to eventually do away with it all together. If nothing is done in Congress, the tax in 2011 will jump to 55% of any estate above $1 million. Obama’s compromise with the Republicans would change that to 35% on estates above $5 million for individuals and $10 million for families and that should make perfect sense to everybody but NO.
Why is there an estate tax to begin with? Here you can get into a lengthy debate but historically the estate tax was to prevent the perpetration of wealth or put another way, stopping the accumulation of wealth in families (Rockefellers, etc.). Why?
The Democrats are adamant at keeping the estate tax high because they need money to spend on their pet projects like giving out money to those in need and where best to get that money than from people who have it.
Well I have worked very hard in my lifetime and I want my kids to benefit from my hard work and not some Democrat imbeciles.
OBAMA’S TAX BILLS NEED TO PASS NOW!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
RELIGION: Get ready for the end...
Might as well get all my issues out by the end of the year…
This one is a doozie. The headline read: BILLBOARDS TO PROCLAIM JESUS’ RETURN ON
HERE IN THE Detroit area, we will see around 20 billboards proclaiming the message; other cities will get many more billboards (40 in Nashville
First, who is doing this? It appears a web site (www.wecanknow.com) is, in conjunction with a Christian radio network called Family Radio; the billboards are being installed in cities where Family Radio is available.
What is the message? That a “RAPTURE” will take place on May 21, 2011 where the “chosen” will be “raised” to be with HIM. Those left behind will suffer through an earthquake where graves will open and on October 21, 2011, the world will end with “God destroying the universe and everything in it”.
This info is from the Detroit
Harold Egbert Camping (89) is the founder of family Radio and the man doing the calculating. He also predicted the end in 1994 but he must have miscalculated and if the end does not come in 2011, he probably miscalculated again. At his age, he will not have too many chances to miscalculate again.
Predicting the “END TIMES” has been going on for thousands of years. Jesus himself thought the end was nigh but he was wrong, obviously. St. Paul
This has happened many times in modern times. I remember a story about people having to be saved from a cave in Russia
The newer predictors of the end times have an elaborate formula for coming up with the exact date of the end; all based on something in the Bible. Knowing that the Bible was written by many, many authors and redacted countless of times and translated many times, means that its originality is very much in doubt, especially on a word for word basis.
I will give you and example. The prediction is stating that“Rapture” will occur on May 21, 2011. The word “rapture” is being used to indicate that the “chosen” Christians will disappear from earth or be whisked from earth to be with Jesus somewhere in heaven. You may remember Edgar Whisenant who sold millions of his book “88 Reasons Why the Rapture will ne in 1988”. There was even a movie where I think people, including the pilot vanished from an airplane while in flight.
Anyway, the whole concept of “rapture” is based on what St. Paul
Family Radio also urged people to leave their churches and denominations because they are all corrupt and I guess will no longer lead you to salvation. So where should the people go and what should they do?
It is easy to dismiss this whole thing as religious lunacy but these are real people and many of them at that, believing in this man; its bad enough that a majority of Americans believe in the second coming of Jesus…but that is another topic and another blog.
Friday, December 10, 2010
GAYS IN THE MILITARY: Current policy must go...
I was a little dismayed to read that the repeal of the DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL military policy failed. The policy prohibits homosexuals from serving openly in the military; if they reveal themselves to be gay, they are discharged.
The policy has been in force for 17 years and Obama promised he would try to get it repealed; the motion failed by two or so votes.
A Pentagon study released this week showed that the risk to the armed services would be very low if the policy was repealed. It was interesting in the sense that it showed most young soldiers as not having a problem at all serving with gays. It seems that the older soldiers had the most problems.
This is obviously a generational problem where dudes from my generation and the next still displayed those discriminatory tendencies learned at their father’s feet. Well too bad-unlearn them!
One of those old farts, Senator McCain, pointed to combat troops in the Marines and in the Army having problems with the repeal. First, it was a minority of those combat troops that had a problem and the problem is not them but their older commanding officers that have the problem and communicate that to the troops in their command. Soldiers are trained to obey any and all orders, so one can see why they would have problems with openly gay soldiers.
The tide is changing and it is only a matter of time BUT what bothers me is that the top military brass along with Defense Secretary Gates, testified before Congress that the policy should be repealed and that no negative impact on units is indicated by its repeal AND still the old twits in Congress would not listen…why?
Gays are serving in the military and most soldiers know who they are and life goes on. When I was in the military in the 60s this was not even an issue ever discussed because it was not an issue and gays, I guess, just stayed in the closet.
Well this is a different world now and we need to adapt to it, so get your head out of your asses and lets move on…
DETROIT SCHOOL BOARD: Needs to be eliminated...
Just read that the idiots on the Detroit Pubic School Board (DPSB) won a court battle giving them back academic control of Detroit Schools from Robert Bobb, the emergency manager appointed by Governor Granholm.
Number one, it is this school board that ran the schools into the ground with the worst graduation rate in the country.
Number two, the former president of this school board was found to be basically illiterate even with a college degree, unable to write complete sentences. He was also charged and convicted of sexual harassment; playing with himself in front of a school administrator AND the board backed him up to the hilt.
Another board member had his children taken away from him for parental incompetence and we want him to take care of the children in Detroit
Bobb wanted to counter-sue but state congressmen from Detroit are telling him to cease and desist; to quit fighting for what he knows is right…to protect the children of Detroit
Obviously, we are witnessing the return of corrupt and incompetent black political culture which we thought was dead or at least near death with the removal of its king Kwame Kilpatrick.
Yes, the voters voted the school board in but they also supported Kwame for two terms which makes their voting judgment suspect at the minimum.
Governor Granholm should immediately take over the Detroit Public Schools, dismiss the board and let Bobb do his job. If she doesn’t have the balls because she is a Democrat, the new governor, Rick Snyder, a Republican, should make that one of his first acts when he becomes governor.
If he needs a reason (and there are too many to count) how about listing all the school administrators that are being prosecuted for stealing school funds.
If Detroit and Detroiters are ever going to climb out of their self-constructed shit hole, a dictator is needed as in the person of Robert Bobb and only our governor can make that happen…DO THE RIGHT THING NOW!
Thursday, December 09, 2010
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: A woman of note...
I was puzzled to read that the WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH
If you remember, members of the Westboro Church are the assholes (sorry...no other word fits) that protest at the funerals of soldiers killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan U.S.
Well, it seems Elizabeth
We all know her story: loss of a son in a car accident, husband’s infidelity and breast cancer. On the other hand, her husband was a millionaire and they lived well.
Elizabeth and her husband attended a Methodist church but all politicians (as hypocritical as some may be) and their families must show a good Christian side to be elected so I don’t see much in that but Elizabeth did grow up in Japan (father a navy pilot) and knew Shintos and Buddhists quite well and therefore was probably exposed to much more than strict Christian dogma and that may explain her religious views as she was dying.
She also said that her God was not an intervening God and she did not think she could pray to him to cure her. Similar principle held by the Founding Fathers who were deist and believed that a deity created the world but had nothing to do with it after he created it.
She also said that she did not believe one should lead hi/her life in a way that would reward him or her with eternal life in heaven; one should do what is right because it is the right thing to do; something I have been saying for some time which presupposes in a sense, that there is nothing after death waiting for you so do your best for humanity’s sake and not for some phony reward.
Kind of reminds me of Mother Teresa who near her death said there is no God because how could he allow such suffering to exist after all her good works and prayers.
It also reminds me of the Book of Job in the Old Testament where Job (a very good and holy person) put up with all the terrible trials that God visited upon him without ever complaining against God. The lesson here is that bad things happen to good people just because they do or that shit just happens or the God we invented really does not exist (because He is an invention) so don’t expect him to do anything to help you.
It appears Elizabeth Edwards, a smart woman, had some serious thoughts about her existence and her lot in life and her ending. She questioned if she was to blame for what befell her and her family; could she have done something to prevent what happened? I think we will all have similar thoughts when the time comes.
At least she was not like the assholes in Westboro, blaming the current misery and suffering in the world and in the U.S. on sins we have committed and thus garnering the wrath and punishment of God. The Jews used to blame themselves for all the shit that befell them (Holocaust…) until they woke up and saw the absurdity of their thinking – at least some of them.
I will follow this issue because I think it has sparked some debate…which is a healthy thing.
Monday, December 06, 2010
GERMAN CHRISTMAS MARKET IN BIRMINGHAM, MI.
This Sunday was cold as hell but we went to the German Christmas Market in Birmingham
I have been traveling to Dusseldorf , Germany
Anyway, usually at this time in Dusseldorf
I was surprised when my daughter said her town (Birmingham Scotland
It was really too cold for man or beast but we had to at least see it. Yes, the had the hot wine which we call GLUE WINE but in German it is GLÃœHWEIN and is usually translated as GLOW WINE but it looks like GLUE to us. The wine was very good and perfect for the cold.
They also had potato pancakes which we got but they were a little thicker and smaller than the ones I had in Germany
There were tents with vendors selling all sorts of stuff but like I said, it was too cold to linger for too long plus my grandson’s cheeks were turning purple. As for the youngest grandson; he’s too fat to get cold.
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