What do we have here?

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Teaching Values

Something was happening up the street today in Santa Maria square. The Church seemed to be rounding up the next generation of PP voters to lecture them on the glories of becoming priests. Seen in the red light of the recent 'scandals', I'll let you make your own joke there. The Bishop himself was present, surrounded by groups of young people. I also refrained from taking a picture of that, even my crude sense of humour knows certain limits.

The getting together of the young with the Men in Black (oops, sorry again I'll leave the jokes to you) reminded me of a somewhat disturbing conversation I had with an otherwise rational student the other day.

The supposed non-believer and scientist to boot was telling me the reasons he sends his children to Catholic schools rather than using the public system. Knowing my skepticism, he came up with this elaborate theory regarding the lack of values teaching in the public schools. I was confused.

Wasn't there just recently a huge uproar in Spain regarding the very fact that the government was introducing a subject that broached that very subject? A course dealing with such awful things as respect and tolerance? Aren't the public schools here bastions of inclusiveness, the place where the private Catholic schools dump the immigrants and troublemakers?

Or wait, were the values he was looking for exclusiveness and the avoidance of law (once again read: pedophile cover up scandals).

Whatever the case, the least they could bother to do is to teach them to pick up after themselves!

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Taking a Hit for the Rat

Here in Spain they call them cabezas de turcos, turkish heads.

In English we call them scapegoats and in Germany the man must be feeling a bit like a kebab about now, but surely a little earthly discomfort will be recompensed in the afterlife for taking a hit for none other than the Pope himself.

Gerhard Gruber, the Munich vicar-general in the 80's is putting himself in the line of fire...making a desperate attempt to take the fall for the Catholic God's spokesperson on earth, though I doubt even the blindest believer will...believe.


Surprise surprise, when Pope Rat was just plain 'ol Archbishop of Munich Rat, he approved the transfer of a priest, known to force 11 year old boys to go down on him, to his diocese to continue his 'pastoring'.

Sure, the very friendly priest was supposed to be undergoing some sort of therapy...though obviously not very successfully because...surprise surprise, he did it again!

So, if the Rat's infamous 2001 letter to bishops worldwide to do everything in their power to keep the Church's inherent paedophilla secret, including threatening whistleblowers with excommunication, wasn't enough to convince the world that this man needs to stand trial. Maybe this will be enough?

I doubt it too.

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Christianity in a Nutshell

"Christianity amounts to the following claims: Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven”—where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and sceptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on Mother’s knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truth-claims ever revealed about the cosmos. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will (probably) be consigned to a fiery hell for all eternity." - Sam Harris from here.

Someone baptize me quick!

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Who's Crazier?

A guy who thinks he's a god, or a guy who thinks one talks to him?

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Jesus Shoots with Magnum

A US military contractor has said it will stop engraving Biblical references on rifles used by the US army.

You think I'm making it up don't you?

I wish I was.

Seems that for going on 20 years now, America's best have been sighting down little brown people using gunsights engraved with chipper biblical references.

Just the thing that might reinforce that silly idea that all those troops in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't there to hand out flowers.

The good thing is that old General Petraeus, head of US Central Command has been quoted as saying, "Cultural and religious sensitivities are important considerations in the conduct of military operations."

Bravo dear General, reassuring to those in the crosshairs with the sneaking suspicion that if they aren't with the Christians, they are well...

Makes one want to go out and convert at their nearest recruiter now, doesn't it?

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Merry Xmas

My wife says that it looks like the Mona Lisa but all the same, for all of you who are celebrating the miraculous birth of a son who was a god and the father, all at the same time...not to mention born of a virgin in a stable during the reign of King Herod who actually reigned some 200 + years before...

Well...

Merry Christmas

May the eggnog help with the confusion, more seen here.

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Santa's Gay

...or wait can I say that? To be honest I'm simply curious to know how many people St.Google will bring to my blog with a title like that.

I'm afraid I have even less than normal 'Christmas Spirit' this year, so I will have to refer you back to last year's ever so popular 12 days of Christmas series.

Kinda like taking out and dusting off the Christmas tree...but not really.

Cheers to being somewhere warm.

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Biblical Selective Reading

One of the things that I find most curious about believers, and in particular, those who believe in the middle book...yes, the Christians, is their ability to be flexible while being extremely rigid at the same time.

The ones who don't believe in that 'blasphemous' book written in Arabic that came after theirs (I mean come on, that was some crazy illiterate guy in the desert thinking that an angel was talking to him).

Those very same people flushed on faith who generally seem to say that the book before theirs was, well a precursor, a trial run if you will...but not really to be followed...or only sometimes, on the 3rd Friday of every Thursday.

It's kind of like those Choose Your Own Adventure books you used to read...but this one involves stoning people.

More fun protest pics here.

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Sorry...Christmas is Cancelled

Yes, that's right little Johnny, you heard it correctly there won't be any Christmas this year.

Why?

Well, the PP here in Spain have come to this conclusion using a brand new innovative way of thinking. It's called Acupuncture Politics.

What's Acupuncture Politics you ask little Johnny?

Well it's simple really. In acupuncture, you stick in a pin in a nerve ending, one that may seem completely unrelated to the problem you are trying to cure and, Voila! Problem solved! Stick a needle in your foot and suddenly your headache goes away.

Still don't get it Johnny? Let me explain further.

Just yesterday there was a vote in the Spanish congress that concerned the hanging of crucifixes in schoolrooms. Yes, I hear you little Johnny, Spain indeed has technically been a democratic secular state now for more than 30 years, but even still the poor tortured guy still hangs on many a state funded wall.

The vote was really just seconding a recent European Court of Human Rights decision where they ruled that religious symbols had no place in state funded schools. The congress' decision in effect was to make European law official here in Spain.

Still confused little Johnny? Still have no idea as to how the following of European law would lead to the canceling of Christmas? Remember I mentioned that in acupuncture you stuck a pin in a completely unrelated part of the body and hoped for a cure?


Well that's how the PP has come to the decision that Christmas is going to be canceled this year. One completely unrelated thing will somehow cause the other. Acupuncture Politics!

No, no no little Johnny...don't cry, the PP is thankfully not in power and won't be able to cancel Christmas. They are simply trying to argue that if you take down religious, ooops, I should say Catholic symbols from public state offices, holidays will no longer be celebrated. Two completely unrelated things make sense to them.

No little Johnny, I don't think that they realize that most of the holidays that they celebrate were incorporated into their belief system from religions that existed before Rome imperialistically imposed Christianity on the peninsula. Remember, these are people who think that Christianity is a European invention and that Bethlehem is really a suburb of Vienna. The very idea of being able to do something like that would be very difficult for them to get their heads around.

Yes Johnny, I know that these are the very same people who believe in virgin births etc and are able to take incredible leaps of faith but accepting that their faith is a mixture of previous ones is a bitter pill to swallow.

What's the lesson Johnny?

"If you have a headache, better take some aspirin instead."

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Fox News Comes to Spain!

I don't think that the word has been around long enough to be listed in the Oxford dictionary, but Fox News can surely be found in dictionaries with less strict admissions criteria.

If not however, I think that we can come up with a pretty good definition.

Fox News (uncountable noun)

-The practice of telling either half-truths or blatant out and out lies, then presenting them as truisms. The misinformation then takes on an eerie semblance of reality because it is either repeated so many times or screamed at rather loud volumes by red-faced presenters thus regressing the listener to an infant-like state where they believe just about anything.

While the 'Fox News' phenomenon had till recently been relegated to places like the U.S.A, Libya, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Kim Jong's Empire, it seems that Spain has jumped on the bandwagon and started up their own brand.

It's called Intereconomia.

For awhile it seemed like your average run of the mill Right wing propaganda machine, delighting in the 'crisis' of its own making and then advocating the dismantling of the few rights left to workers in order to overcome the aforementioned crisis.

That is until the other day.

Remember Pope Rat's senile comments regarding condom use in Africa? Well, breathing a sigh of relief after a parliamentary motion to denounce his statement as false was struck down, the Right has come out swinging...swinging crosses that is.

Their campaign hearkens back to the good 'ol days when Africans were darkies and well minded people gave a few coppers to the 'negritos'...(oops, many still say that while asking money for their proselytizing missions)


The report (that I came across on Graeme's excellent South of Watford) shown below is unfortunately only (as of now) available in Spanish. So if your Castillian is a bit rusty, here's a quick synopsis.

In a quack defense of the Rat's lunacy, the Right has decided that the people of Africa are not intelligent enough to use condoms properly.

I'm actually serious.

In the report it goes on to say that the fingernails of most Africans are detrimental to condom use and even goes so far later on to say that their hands are not adept enough!?

Again, I'm not kidding.

It then goes on to say that the climate of the entire continent is not conducive to proper condom storage and therefore not fit for use in Africa. This from a program based in a country where summer temperatures often soar above 40º!



The one thing that strikes me (other than of course the rancid, out and out racism), is that are they saying that condoms would be effective if used and stored properly?

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God Car is a Demanding Deity, isn't he?

And you thought the bearded old guy from the old testament was capricious, demanding human sacrifices and all that nastiness.

Well the modern age's deity, God Car, is an equally demanding and bitchy supreme being.

First it eats up entire swaths of countryside, demanding more and more cement to frolic on. Roads and more roads are built, but God Car is not content.

The very cities we live in are managed and mangled with the ever present will of God Car in mind. Forget those two-legged beasts that happen to cohabit the area, blast those pretend deities with only 2 wheels and no motor! Venture into God Car's path at your own risk, after all...it is bigger and more powerful than you.

God Car is the future and now it apparently wants to usurp the past.

Here in Spain and in most of Europe, traffic and cars are particularly problematic. City cores were developed long before newcomer God Car demanded allegiance from all. As people's lives move faster and faster, cars seemingly become more and more necessary to some. First a family buys one, then two...then jr. needs one too....and space, well it's limited.

Down on the southern coast of Spain in Murcia, plans were recently drawn up to build yet another temple to God Car, smack in the middle of the city.

Town councilors rubbed their hands together in expectation of the lucrative kick backs that were bound to flow their way once their appointed constructors began building the parking lot.

But something went wrong.

As the jackhammers began, they noticed that they were digging up what would turn out to be an entire Arab neighbourhood. 48 houses, 7 palaces and a mosque suddenly turned up, more than a hectare of ruins.

God Car was angry. Not only was there an impediment stopping the building of a new temple to glorify him, it wasn't even Christian!

Realizing that something this big couldn't be covered up and hidden, and more importantly having visions of those glorious kick backs dissolving before their eyes, the PP came up with a plan.

What was it?

Well, just dig it up, and then put it back over top God Car's underground temple!

Now that's thinking worthy of a deity.

-By the way, there is a facebook group against this, you can find it by typing
Proteger los restos arqueológicos de San Esteban
into the search option in facebook.

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