Priests gone wild (still)

Holy cow grasshopper and who could possibly have seen this coming?! Bishop Robert W Finn out of Kansas City has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse by priest Shawn Ratigan (known to some as 'Rat-bastard Ratigan'). It looks like the "good reverend" would get all giddy and take inappropriate pictures of young female children (inappropriate as in upskirt shots, focusing photographs on the crotch area, naked vagina pictures, this sort of thing) and save them on his laptop "for later". Bishop Bob (AKA: Bishop Robert W Finn) found out about the photographs in December of 2010 but, showing the Catholic Church's usual compassion and caring for young children, couldn't be bothered to notify police until May, 2011, giving the priest Ratigan time to get some pictures of at least one more young girl. God bless!

Just to make this whole story that much more revolting, it was ten years ago that the Bishops in the US of A pledged to report suspected abusers to the police, a policy that the "good" Bishop Finn reaffirmed in 2008. Apparently everybody was just kidding or had their fingers crossed behind their backs because now the Bishop seems to figure nothing wrong has been done. "We will meet these announcements with a steady resolve and a rigorous defence." Yes, very Winston Churchill, except that while Winston smoked like a chimney and drank like an enthusiastic booze-hound, he did not support the abuse of children.

So once again the Catholic Church is supporting and defending yet another child abuser. I know I'm just being a little naive but isn't there something in some of the "holy" books about protecting the little children? You know, after "thou shalt stoneth and tortureth gay dudes" it might say "but keepeth your mitts of of the children because that is sicketh"? I mean, if Herod had had his way with baby Jesus would the modern church just say, "No kidding, fresh meat!", or would there have been some sort of son of god defence, "you cannot molest him for he is the son of god, but you can certainly take a run at the rest of the little darlings" (or is that, "you cannot molest Him for He is the Son of God..."? Nah, I don't think so). Maybe it's just me but that is wrong on so many levels.

To me the guys who do the TV show South Park summed up the whole priest molesting children thing best. The episode I am thinking of is called Red Hot Catholic Love and in it the town priest heads to the Vatican to get to the bottom of the popular child abuse culture in the Catholic Church. What he finds is an organization more concerned with getting children to stop reporting the abuse rather than stopping the abuse itself. I have to say that the facts would seem to back this up.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Support the (hetrosexual) troops!

Proud members of the right-wing of the Republican party in the US of A scurried out from under their rocks at a recent debate to boo a soldier serving the US of A in Iraq. What was the horrible thing this soldier had none? Two things, in fact: 1 - he asked a question, and 2 - he was gay (Actually, that should be, 1 - he was GAY, and 2 - he asked a question, and you don't have to worry about 2.)

Of course these slithering little creatures have every right to boo a soldier serving his country in a war zone, so the focus really should be on the people on stage who were involved in the debate, and that would be the people who are scrapping to be the Republican candidate for President of the US in the 2012 election. The thing of it is, how many of the "support the troops" Republicans leapt to the front of the stage, shouting, "how dare you!" to the boo-ers in the crowd. That would be... none.

Not one of the candidates could be bothered to point out to the boo-ers what slime riddled little freaks they were. In fact none of the moderators of the debate could be bothered and it looks like none of the non-booing members of the audience could work up the energy to come to the defence of a serving soldier either. Very impressive. Rick Santorum, the candidate who was about to answer the question from the soldier claimed later that he hadn't heard the boos saying that if he had he would have said something about it at the time. What did Mister Santorum actually do? He waited for he booing to stop then he answered the question. Pretty polite of him to wait for the booing he couldn't hear to stop before answering. Very presidential.

Just as presidential were remarks by candidate Herman Cain. When asked if he should have told the audience to respect the soldier, Mister Cain responded, "In retrospect, because of the controversy it has created and because of the different interpretations that it could have had, yes, that probably--that would have been appropriate." "... because of the controversy"? No, the correct answer was because it would have been the right thing to do.

So this is pretty much another nail into the coffin of hypocrisy that is this new neo-con version of the Grand Old Party (ie: the Republicans). Over the last dozen years or so they have trampled on the values that at one time were the (excuse the expression) "soul" of the party, and a case could be made that you could go back to when Reagan first slipped into office.

Low taxes = increased revenue: Sure, this is why President Reagan had to bring in the largest tax increase since World War II and this is also the philosophy that allowed Bush II to grind a surplus into a multi-trillion dollar debt. Good on you, George.

Traditional family values: This would take in all the traditional values like divorce, cheating, non-payment of child support, etc. Newt Gingrich only gets married so that he can have someone to cheat on, which would appear to be a Republican sentiment anyway judging by the extra-marriage antics of Senators John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig, or Governors Mark Sanford or Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a very distinguished list. Or how about John McCain telling a joke about President Clinton's daughter? Maybe attacking children is a traditional family value.

Smaller government: Oh yeah, this is a big one for your average conservative Republican. That crowd farts out the old 'government is too big' mantra at every opportunity and that goes over big with the 'don't trust government' bunch (you know, the Tea Party. Don't tell anyone.) Anybody remember when the capital punishment question came up at one of the candidate debates and it was pointed out how many had been executed in Governor Rick "call me Killer" Perry's great state of Texas the audience burst into applause? So while Perry stood there sporting a George Bushian smirk I had to wonder why you couldn't trust the government to run the country, but you could trust them to kill your fellow citizens for all the right reasons. Or how about the tragedy of Terri Shiavo, where the Republican governments in both Florida and Washington both stuck their noses in where they absolutely did not belong, extending the hell that this family was going through for political gain. President Bush even cut a vacation short to come back to Washington to sign a bill taking this family's rights away, again for political points. Next time stay on vacation George, you do less damage that way.

Support the Troops: This is one of the biggest and most revolting lies the right-wingers spew out. They do not support the troops, at all, ever. Even someone like John McCain who once was one of the troops does not support them, at all. How is extending tours, stop-loss (a concept so filthy that when I first heard about it I though it was fiction), poor pay, substandard medical care, poor equipment in the field, and the list goes on, constitute supporting the troops? There is of course the latest booing a soldier who is actually out in the field - and John McCain's read on it? Well gawrsh, when you're up on that stage you aren't actually paying attention to the audience. Sorry John, but you are full of shit. There is absolutely no excuse for what happened there and there is no excusing the fact that not one of those great patriots on the stage thought to tell the booers to get the hell out because real United Stations support the troops. Yeah, big shock.

Nope, I don't believe that even a hard-core right-winger like Barry Goldwater from back in the long ago would have allowed the booing of a serving soldier to go unanswered, unlike the current crop of hard-core right-wingers. It's a funny old world where Barry Goldwater would be considered a moderate.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Bank Of America screws its own

My favourite quote from this latest hullabaloo from south of the 49th (so far) is from a Bank of America customer in Baltimore, quoted in the Washington Post. "I hate it, it's wrong," she says, "but $5 a month - that's less than going to the movies." What this person is referring to is Bank of Americas recent announcement that in the new year they will begin charging certain debit card users $5 a month to make purchases using their debit cards. Apparently the thinking is that even though one is being charged $5 a month to use ones own money, that's okay because it is only $5 a month, Right and if someone charged this person $5 a month not to break their windows that would be fine too. Gawrsh, it's only $5, right?

Of course it is folks like this that the banks count on when they toss another fee into the mix and of course the new fees always seem to only apply to those who are regular folks, or in other words, the non-wealthy Joe the plumber types. Why would this be, I have to wonder, and then about a tenth of a second later I know the answer; because they can. With the current attention span of the average member of the paying public clocking in a "don't blink or you'll miss it" five seconds, the banking executives know that after an initial fit of grumpiness folks will be distracted by the latest celebrity "news" or a new "reality" TV show and then they'll roll over and take it. Heck, it's easier hey, and it costs less than going to a movie.

The banking industry claims that a new fee such as this is being forced on them due to over regulation brought on by the economic crisis of 2008. The funny thing is that it was decades of zany monkey business by the banks and other financial institutions that caused the financial crisis in the first place (oh I feel like such a cad pointing that out. You heard me, cad!) So now that somebody has said tot he banks, no, you can no longer act like a booze-hound in a liquor store, they have decided to screw some of their customers over.

Still, they have to be allowed to do this sort of thing. If the customers keep on putting up with it, it must be ok. Personally I've always had issues with banks, it is hard to trust any institution what on one hand tells you how trustworthy they are and how much they care for you, but who on the other hand chain the pens to the desks to the customers can't steal them. Yeah, that's trust.

Really, I suppose it's not like the bank is charging their less wealthy clients to walk into the bank, or to think about the bank. Those activities are still free (and kudos to the banks for that). What the Bank of America will be doing is charging people to use their own money and while I am sure the bank has excellent reasons for taking a huge slobbering dump all over it's less wealthy clients, I cannot think of any reasons why those clients being dumped on would continue to use the services of the Bank of America in any way shape or form. Guess I just can't see the big picture or something. I mean, it is only $5 per month and that is less than a movie.

Anyway... Humouroceros