What in the World?

What the hell? Don't they know that America's wingnuts go nuts when someone burns a Bible?

Police in Israel are investigating the burning of hundreds of New Testaments in a city near Tel Aviv, an incident that has alarmed advocates of religious freedom.

Investigators plan to review photographs and footage showing "a fairly large" number of New Testaments being torched this month in the city of Or-Yehuda, a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Wednesday.

News accounts in Israel have quoted Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of Or-Yehuda, as saying he organized students who burned several hundred copies of the New Testament. The deputy mayor gave interviews to Israeli radio and television stations after word of the incident surfaced about two weeks ago.

Soon he was talking with Russian, Italian and French television stations, "explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the damage caused by the news (and photographs) of Jews burning New Testaments," The Jerusalem Post reported.

Aharon told CNN on Wednesday that he collected New Testaments and other "Messianic propaganda" that had been handed out in the city but that he did not plan or organize a burning. Instead, he said, three teenagers set fire to a pile of New Testaments while he was not present. Once he learned what was going on, he said, he stopped the burning.

It's not news that there are Messianic Jews who do this kind of thing--every religion has its fundamentalists, you know.

Flashback to the wingnut who tried to tell us that this kind of thing went on all the time in Iraq. Somewhere, John McCain and his pastors and Joe Lieberman are sitting in a room, all looking uncomfortably at each other with beady little eyes...

--WS

Kathryn Jean Lopez Hates Like No Other

One of the things I need to stop doing is wandering into that horrific freak show of self-deluding wankery called The Corner...

Speaker Pelosi, Step Aside [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

As a sister Catholic, I have a plea to Nancy Pelosi this morning: Don't do it. Don't make the papal Mass about you or a political statement. The Vatican wants bishops to shepherd pro-choice Catholic pols — you can't be a pro-choice Catholic pol — and Pelosi (who was at dinner last night) insists on receiving Communion. If the pope, unknowingly perhaps, gives her Communion, the image will be a damaging one — in one picture, undoing what he's trying to ingrain in Church leaders. She knows this is a big deal. I know it means something to her — but she should have this fight another day.

It's a tough thing. No one wants to judge. No one can know another's soul. But we know voting records and rhetoric and we know what it taught. And I just don't want to see a beautiful Mass become a political statement. We'll see. God bless all who will be at Nationals stadium today, Democrat, Republican, everyone.

This is a beautiful bit of wingnut wankery. On the one hand, a woman who wants communion from her church is vilified and pilloried simply because of a public policy position that is contradictory to that of her faith--separation of church and state much? On the other hand, God Bless all who will be there, even you filthy, disgusting, horrible, no-good Democrats.

The American Wingnut, circa April 2008: I can't get the hate out of my fat fucking mouth fast enough...

When Religion Collides with Reason

Yes, this is true:

POCZERNIN, Poland - This wind-swept village is bracing for an invasion of demons, thanks to a priest who believes he can defeat Satan.

The Rev. Andrzej Trojanowski, a soft-spoken Pole, plans to build a "spiritual oasis" that will serve as Europe's only center dedicated to performing exorcisms. With the blessing of the local Catholic archbishop and theological support from the Vatican, the center will aid a growing number of Poles possessed by evil forces or the devil himself, he said.

"This is my task, this is my purpose -- I want to help these people," said Trojanowski, who has worked as an exorcist for four years. "There is a group of people who cannot get relief through any other practices and who need peace."

About 70 priests serve as trained exorcists in Poland, about double the number of five years ago. An estimated 300 exorcists are active in Italy. Foremost among them: the Rev. Gabriele Amorth, 82, who performs exorcisms daily in Rome and is dean of Europe's corps of demon-battling priests.

"People don't pray anymore, they don't go to church, they don't go to confession. The devil has an easy time of it," Amorth said in an interview. "There's a lot more devil worship, people interested in satanic things and seances, and less in Jesus."

Amorth and other priests said the resurgence in exorcisms has been encouraged by the Vatican, which in 1999 formally revised and upheld the rite for the first time in almost 400 years.

Although a Vatican official denied reports in December of a campaign to train more exorcists, supporters said informal efforts began under Pope John Paul II -- himself an occasional demon chaser -- and have accelerated under Pope Benedict XVI. A Catholic university in Rome began offering courses in exorcism in 2005 and has drawn students from around the globe.

One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.

Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

"This is a service which is sorely needed," said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. "The number of people who need help is intensifying right now."

Honestly, it's hard to figure out where the Catholicism stops and the Scientology starts when you read things like this. Essentially, there is now no difference between one wacky cult and the other wacky cult, since they're both exempt from taxes and have millions of followers. How can you sneer at one when the other sneers back at you? But if you're going to tolerate religion, you have to tolerate what goes along with it. I don't pretend to be smart enough to understand it, I just help out when I can and pass along my own experiences with...the Devil.

To date, I have none.

Has anyone considered that, perhaps--just perhaps--the Devil has better things to do?

Light The Highway Project Exposed

This is the kind of thing that makes me wince and want to turn off the computer.

I grew up next to I-35, the Interstate freeway that has that numeric designation. The Blue Girl has lived all over, but she's in the proximity of that great highway nowadays. I haven't been on I-35 since 2004. So for me to post about this great freeway is to pay homage to it. I've travelled on over 90% of it, I think. No, there is no effort underway to turn it into a NAFTA inspired transit corridor designed to please the International Jewish Conspiracy, the United Nations, and George Soros by making it the invasion route for the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his liberal minions.

There is a movement of wingnut bizaaro freaked-out whatchamacallits who have started the Light The Highway project. Here's some of their reasoning for doing so:

...God brought to our attention all the incidents of bloodshed that have taken place all along I-35. Many of you are familiar with some of these tragedies:

San Antonio: Remember the Alamo
Austin: University of Texas tower shooting on August 1, 1966 (16 dead)
Waco: 1993 Branch Davidian conflagration (79+ dead)
Dallas: 1963 Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Oklahoma City: 1995 bombing and collapse of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building (168 dead, 853 injured)
Wichita: 2000 Wichita Horror (4 tortured and killed)
Wichita: The BTK serial killer (10+ dead)
Kansas City: 2007 Shopping Mall shooting (3 dead)
Mason City, Iowa: 1993 5 people murdered by the first woman on death row since 1953
Minneapolis: August 1, 2007 bridge collapse

Now, you can mine that little list for all kinds of wonderful examples of wingnuts out of control. I want to take a look at that last item, the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. I've travelled over that bridge dozens of times. Its collapse was a tragedy. But here's what a forum member [and I acknowledge that the organizers of the Light the Highway project might disagree with the poster] thinks is the real reason why it collapsed:

1967--Bridge built--(40 Years ago)
2007--Aug 1(Bridge falls 40 years later)
2006 Ellison is elected to represent Minn in Congress in Washington
2007(inauguration) Keith Ellison swears in on the Koran (not the Bible)
Keith Ellison is the first Muslim in Congress
I 35 Bridge is in Ellisons district
It is the NW border of the Mpls Neighborhood called Cedar Riverside--Locally known as the WEST BANK--- Note: (The West Bank of Mpls. is approx. 75% Muslim)

Unbelievable.

Here's what another forum poster had to say about the Des Moines area, and how the Light the Highway project is really going to come together:

In seeking the Lord for a deeper understanding of this prayer Initiative, I asked that He place a tool in my hand so that I could turn around and give a better understanding of why we are doing what we are doing.
Immediately I saw a key being put into my hand, I turn and walk over to I-35 and turn the key that opens a door to it.
As I waited I heard the words "You are pulling down strongholds along this highway that are trafficking in the systems of men."
I am reminded of Isaiah 35:8 that says that 'the unclean shall not pass over it'..... Then the Holy Spirit began to show me the trafficking of pornography, children(being used for unclean purposes against their wills), drugs, terrorism, illegal smuggling, transference of the wealth of the wicked, and trade violations.

If there's one thing the Lord gets pissed about, it's anything that violates a signed trade agreement.

But there's more. The purpose of the Light the Highway project is to engage in what are called "purity sieges." And, no. These sieges have nothing to do with bringing catapult to bear on the stone walls of a massive castle:

“Purity Sieges”: Youth across the nation will “siege” sites of impurity in their city, by doing on-location prayer. Each city will identify the evil strongholds therein and send teams of intercessors to those sites. Purity Sieges look similar to political protests, but instead of protesting the war in Iraq or some other political effort, they will be protesting the machinations of evil, such as pornography, injustice, abortion, and other strongholds.

Wow. Hope that works out for you.

'Splain this, Benny Hinn

This is the kind of story that makes my non-Christian soul do handsprings!

A Dundalk, Md. accountant, who teaches Reiki and Wicca (a pagan religion that reveres nature) on the side, won $330 million in a multi-state lottery, after letting the computer select his numbers at random.

He gives Pagan gods the glory for his good fortune. "I look at it this way. If the gods are going to intervene, it would be easier to manipulate a machine versus me trying to interpret what they are telling me," he said, explaining why he opted for machine-selected numbers.