Not just the most religious, not just the most ignorant, but the most IGNORANT ABOUT RELIGION of any people on Earth!!!

Whooo!!!! We're number 1!!!!


According to a new book, in this most favoured nation of God:

• 98% of Americans profess belief in a monotheistic God, with 81% claiming to be “Christian.”
• The USA is the “only developed nation in the survey where a majority of citizens reported that religion plays a ‘very important’ role in their lives.”
• Other recent surveys show only 58% to 80% of Americans are “certain” there’s a God.
• 75% of adults believe the famed Benjamin Franklin saying “God helps those who help themselves” is one of the Ten Commandments.
• “A 2005 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly two-thirds of Americans endorse the simultaneous teaching of creationism and evolution in public schools,” despite the former’s insistence that the latter isn’t true and never happened.
• 10% believe Joan of Arc was the wife of Noah from the Book of Genesis.
• The decline of religious literacy in America began with the “Second Great Awakening” of the 1800s — a rejection of the Founding Fathers’ Age of Reason and theological knowledge in favor of a “personal relationship with God”
  
• George W. Bush, himself a religious illiterate who claims to be a born-again Christian whose “favorite philosopher” is Jesus, excitedly jabbers about a Third Great Awakening
• 50% of high school seniors believe Sodom and Gomorrah were married.
  
• 17% agree that Ramadan is the “Jewish day of atonement.”
• Most believe Saint Paul led the Israelites from their enslavement in Egypt.
• Only one in three Americans can name the four Gospels, while less than half can even name one of them.
• A majority couldn’t identify the preacher of the “Sermon on the Mount.”
  

Saddest fucking thing I have seen in a very long time...

This picture, from Salon, is of wounded Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel on his wedding day.

One of the most poignant things I got out of the interview is how fewer troops are dying because of improved medical care. People that would have died of such traumatic injuries in previous wars can now be saved - but they need multiple, massive surgeries, over weeks and months. They are sent to facilities like Brooke Army Medical Center that may be far away from their home towns. The government doesn't pay for a family to come out to be with their loved one - maybe for a week, but no more.

The Fisher House Foundation builds "comfort houses" on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. These homes enable family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful times - during the hospitalization for an unexpected illness, disease, or injury.

Ty says that he wouldn't have survived his 19 surgeries at Brooke Army if his and his mom hadn't been there to support him. Please, if you can, support this charity by clicking here.

"Aiding the enemies of America"

Apparently, yesterday on CNN's Your World Today, Michael Ware, a correspondent based in CNN's Baghdad bureau, made the statement that "anyone trying to put artificial deadlines upon this conflict is only aiding the enemies, so-called, of America, Al Qaeda and Iran. ... [I]n terms of the broader strategic framework, it serves only America's enemies."

I am so tired of hearing about "our enemies" in Iraq, as if the carnage there is all - or even mostly - about us. The fact is that it is not our war to lose. Iraq is in the throes of a multipartite civil conflict, with the U.S. military sometimes playing a peacekeeping role, and sometimes - intentionally or unintentionally - helping one side or another. The U.S. cannot impose a military solution, and there are not enough troops to stabilize (as is often stated as our short-term goal) the capital city. The situation will go on much as it has, with more soldiers and Marines dying every month, and the situation continuing to devolve.

The obvious fact, that no one seems to want to talk about, is that we will have to leave eventually. All the sides in this conflict know this. There is no one with even the slightest understanding of the situation who imagines that the status quo can be maintained for more than a few years. So the canard that "setting a timetable helps our enemies" literally makes no sense. What would they do differently if we circled a date on the calendar and said, "all troops out by (say) August 2008?" Stop killing each other for a year and a half? Kill each other at an even faster rate? What evidence is there to support either idea?

We have exactly two options: end it now, this instant - and engage in an extremely long-term commitment to deal with the consequences of our foolish, murderous actions in Iraq; or spend a few more months or years creating more horror in Iraq and in the souls of more soldiers and Marines before taking the first option anyway.

There are no other options.

International Women's Day

The red text reads:

8th of March is the day of the rebellion of the working women against kitchen slavery".

The grey text on the lower right reads:

Say NO to the oppression and Babbittry of household work!"

Where's Riverbend?

It's not unlike the Iraqi blogger who writes Baghdad Burning to go missing for weeks at a time - hers is not a country where the luxury of regular blogging is as common as it is here in the West. However, given that she disappeared after questioning Maliki's denial of the Sabrine al-Janabi rape, it's more than a little disturbing...

And, in another language...

The first entry on my technical writing blog.

I would love to meet anyone who could understand both this and my previous post...

Il "Cav ed il Decider

Ieri mattina ho ascoltato una intervista con Silvio Berlusconi su Radio anch'io di Rai 2. Mi interesse molto il fenomino del cosiddetto "Cavaliere," e mi sembra che la sua popolarità nell'Italia sia paragonabile a quella che gode il "Decider" negli Stati Uniti. Sembravano entrambi come "outsider" all'inizio delle loro campagne elletorale, ma poi diventava chiaro che tutti e due sono sopportati della struttura del potere.

Ascoltando la programma, mi pareva che Berlusconi parlasse molto chiaro, abbastanza lento (per un milanese!!), e con molta sicurezza di sè. Mi sembrava che avesse una padronanza della sua lengua madre migliore di quello di Bush, anche se negli Stati Uniti parlare bene sia considerato quasi un'ostentazione.

Da questo punto, pensava che Romano Prodi (il "Professore") magari sarebbe paragonabile a Al (il "Ozone man") Gore. Questi due uomini sono molto intelligenti, molto seri, ma non troppo drammatici. E purtroppo, secondo me, questo è un problema molto grave per la democrazia. Per la maggior parte degli elettori, la democrazia è una forma di divertimento. È un dilemma molto inquietante per me, che considero l'importanza della democrazia come un punto fondamentale della vita politica.

È il mio parere che sarebbe meglio se il governi dei paesi sia più piccoli - mi pare che i elezioni che convolgono un grandissimo numero di elettori favorano i ricchi e la gente di spettacolo...

سلام العرر

Whoa.



Blog's gettin hits from all over. What up Iraq?

It's back on!

Yes! Italian citizenship is still within my grasp!!!

Thanks to Sognatrice's advice, I did find out that it is possible to apply for Italian citizenship even though my grandfather became a citizen before my father's birth. Unfortunately, I have to live in Italy for three years (oh woe is me!!!!) and go through a whole bureaucratic rigmarole. However, I build a house, married and divorced in the People's Republic of Hawai'i, so bureaucracy doesn't scare me.

From the Italian embassy:

HOW TO APPLY

1. Declaration of desire to become a citizen;

If the foreigner is of Italian descent (up to the 2nd degree) he/she can obtain citizenship in any of the following cases:

- by serving in the Italian armed forces;

- by becoming a subordinate employee of the Italian State, even abroad;

- by residing legally in Italy for at least two years after reaching legal age.

If the foreigner was born in Italian territory he/she can obtain citizenship by residing legally and uninterruptedly in Italy from birth up to legal age.

I will not be stopped!!!!!

the "1948 rule"

I almost gave up my dream of dual citizenship after finding out my grandfather had become a citizen before my father was born. Then, my relatives came through with a bunch of new information about my grandmother, and it suddenly looked like I could get jure sanguinis citizenship through her. More and more, the evidence seemed to point to her having never become a citizen, and so I allowed myself to believe it was really going to happen.

Then, reality came crashing in.

a grandmother born before 01/01/1948 can claim Italian citizenship only from her father and can transfer it only to children born after 01/01/1948

FUCK!!

Ah well, Sognatrice gave me some hints about applying for citizenship in Italy, even when the line has been broken... who knows.

Northern Italy on foot

I keep trying and trying to write something on this for my Italian class, but I'm still recovering from the flu, and my head feels like it is filled with cotton. Maybe I'll write something in Italian in a bit...

I can't find any news in English on this, so if you don't read Italian you may be surprised to know that tomorrow (25 feb), no cars will be allowed in all (or mostly all) of the cities in Italy's industrialised north. Air quality in all of Italy's cities is notoriously bad, and PM₁₀ concentrations are higher than EU regulations in many Northern cities. Italian cities were built for foot and horse traffic, and so are perfectly suited for pedestrians and bicyclists. There has been a growing trend to have "car-free Sundays" in the cities, with free or reduced rate entry to museums and historic sites.

Of course, we could never do this in our car-dependent U.S... aside from the cultural antipathy to walking, there simply isn't the infrastructure. Even the layout of our cities militates against self-propulsion, and public transportation is, in most places, minimal to non-existent.

That's about all I have brain power for right now... more - in one language or another - soon.

The rape of Sabrine

This could be the beginning of the end.

Sabrine al-Janabi was abducted from her home and raped by Iraqi security forces. This is, of course, horrifyingly common in the "new Iraq."

What is not common is for the woman to come forward and publicly talk about it, in her own name, on television. Sabrine spoke on al-Jazeera to a horrified Iraq... and it didn't take al-Maliki long to try to discredit her story.

"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," the government statement said. It added: "The prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded."

I kind of thought I didn't have any outrage left. I guess I was wrong...

Argentine team to play without fans

Something about this story just kills me - and it's not just the part about "Angry Moron Fans," though that helps...

Argentine team to play without fans
Slam Sports
3 January 2007

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Second-division club Deportivo Moron will have to play a full season of home matches without fans, the result of a riot at their stadium in December.

In the most severe sanction ever imposed on a soccer club, sports authorities also banned the use of Moron's stadium for five weeks, forcing to team to play elsewhere. According to the penalties announced by the Buenos Aires Sports Discipline Commission, no fans will be allowed into the stadium.

Moron appeared headed for promotion to the first division, but a 1-0 loss on Dec. 9 to Social Espanol condemned it to remain in the second division.

Angry Moron fans invaded the pitch and beat several of their own team's players and caused massive damage to the stadium.

The commission said the penalties are intended to discourage the violence that has plagued Argentine soccer in recent years.

Stoned to death for adultery... in 2006

This story is nowhere to be found in the US press... which kind of stuns me, with the Islamophobia in this country.

Una vedova saudita, sei anni dopo la morte del marito, partorisce un figlio. Non essendo sposata, la donna ha "portato avanti una gravidanza illegittima": per la Shariyah islamica si tratta di adulterio.

In short, for you English-only folks: a Saudi widow had a baby, and since she was not married, she must be an adulteress. QED. By Sharia law, the punishment for adultery is death by stoning.
If this shit was happening in Iran, damn sure it would be on the cover of the New York Times. But the Saudis are George Bush's BFF, so it gets the silent treatment?

"By the light of a burning bridge"

I share some of the feelings of this writer, who permanently emigrated to Venezuela from the US. I am not as convinced as he is that the "Rubicon" has yet been crossed... but I do acknowledge that it could happen quickly.

In their silence and acquiescence Americans have voted –- even if by abstention –- to stand on the shoulders of all drowning peoples in the vain hope that they will somehow be saved from a paradigm which they support and empower by obeying it; by endorsing it with their silence or knowingly impotent protests; by refusing to throw themselves against the gears of the machine. In this world, a protest which is allowed and encouraged, corralled into free-speech areas, and then policed by the ruling government only to be ignored by the media is, by definition, meaningless.

The US is a nation where the “non-negotiable” and unsustainable “American” way of life is propped up by global conflict, out-of-control military spending, massive and unsustainable debt, and an increasingly-aggressive fascist police state. It is a nation where all US citizens who do not resist and disconnect from this paradigm enjoy their ever-diminishing privileges with the guilty knowledge that somewhere else, hopefully in some “other” country, others are paying the price for it.

The world is now my country.

Ugh. I wish I could hurry my FOIA request along somehow.

"Così la prof ci ha coinvolto nel gioco erotico"

LOL.

My favourite part of the "tale of the Porno Prof" is where they say the supposedly abused boys 'si sentono un po' gli eroi del paese.'

That's Italia!

The one-state solution

Something I have been saying and thinking for a while: one state in Israel-Palestine, with rights and protections for all... expressed much better than I ever could

South Africa seen as model for Palestine

By Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American, and the author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."
November 12, 2006

As I watched the images last week of destruction from the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli shelling attack had killed an entire family, as a Palestinian I could understand the feelings of one survivor who said, "I cannot see a day when we will live in peace with them." But I also know there is no other choice.

When Israel was established, its founders said it would be an exemplary, moral state. For many Jews, it seemed like a miraculous redemption after so much suffering and loss in the Nazi Holocaust.

Palestinians experienced a different reality. Israel became a "Jewish state" in a country that had always been multicultural and multireligious. The expulsion and exclusion of Palestinians from their own homeland has led Israelis and Palestinians into an endless nightmare of mutual non-recognition and bloodshed.

For decades, the conventional wisdom has been that this conflict can only be resolved by partitioning the country into two states. Yet despite enormous political and diplomatic efforts to achieve this, the two peoples remain thoroughly if unhappily intertwined. Israel's project of establishing settler-colonies inside the territories where Palestinians wanted to create a state has rendered separation impossible.

At the same time, Israel finds itself in a conundrum. For the first time since the state was founded, Israeli Jews no longer form an absolute majority in the territory they control. Today there are roughly 5 million Jews and 5 million Palestinians living in the same land. The trends are incontestable. Within a few years, Palestinians will form the clear majority.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recognized in 2003 what this would mean: "We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say, `There is no place for two states,'" in this country, and "`All we want is the right to vote.' The day they get it, we will lose everything." Warning that Israel could not remain both a Jewish state and a democracy if it held on to all of the occupied Palestinian territories, Olmert added, "I shudder to think that liberal Jewish organizations that shouldered the burden of struggle against apartheid, will lead the struggle against us."

Some Israeli extremists, like the new Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman, believe this "demographic problem" can be solved by expelling non-Jews. Israel's chosen solution, which it calls "unilateral separation," walls Palestinians into impoverished ghettos Palestinians compare to the townships and Bantustans set up for blacks by the apartheid government of South Africa. The result of this approach, as we see in Gaza, is more hopelessness, resistance and defiance, and sure disaster for both peoples.

The two-state solution remains attractive and comforting in its apparent simplicity and finality. But in reality, it has proved unattainable because neither Palestinians nor Israelis are willing to give up enough of the country that they love. Faced with this impasse, a small but growing group of Israelis and Palestinians are tentatively exploring an old idea long dormant: Why not have a single state in which both peoples enjoy equal rights and protections and religious freedom? Many people dismiss this as utopian dreaming.

Allister Sparks, the legendary editor of the anti-apartheid Rand Daily Mail newspaper, observed that the conflict in South Africa most resembled those in Northern Ireland and Palestine-Israel, because each involved "two ethno-nationalisms" in a seemingly irreconcilable rivalry for the "same piece of territory." If the prospect of "one secular country shared by all" seems "unthinkable" in Palestine-Israel today, then it is possible to appreciate how unlikely such a solution once seemed in South Africa. But "that is what we did," Sparks says, "without any foreign negotiator [and] no handshakes on the White House lawn."

To be sure, Palestinians and Israelis would not simply be able to take the new South Africa as a blueprint. They would have to work out their own distinct constitution, including mechanisms for ethnic communities to have autonomy in matters that concern them, and to guarantee that no one group can dominate another. There would be hard work to heal the terrible wounds of the past. Such a solution offers the chance that Palestine-Israel could become for the first time ever the truly safe home where Israelis and Palestinians can accept each other. It may be an arduous path, but in the current impasse we cannot afford to ignore any ray of light.

Real child abuse

I am under the effects of some weird chronic fatigue shit. Been feeling beat ever since I had a wicked asthma attack brought on by the Esperanza fire.

For now, I'm going to pass something along a propos of all this "Pastor Ted" drama. I have been increasingly drawn to cranky old Richard Dawkins, whose anti-religious views are far less controversial in Sane Europe than here. Courtesy of the always-impressive Arthur Silber, here's a quote... Dawkins writes:

I am persuaded that the phrase 'child abuse' is no exaggeration when used to describe what teachers and priests are doing to children whom they encourage to believe in something like the punishment of unshriven mortal sins in an eternal hell.

In the television documentary Root of All Evil? to which I have already referred, I interviewed a number of religious leaders and was criticized for picking on American extremists rather than respectable mainstreamers like archbishops. It sounds like a fair criticism -- except that, in early 21st-century America, what seems extreme to the outside world is actually mainstream. One of my interviewees who most appalled the British television audience, for example, was Pastor Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs. But, far from being extreme in Bush's America, 'Pastor Ted' is president of the thirty-million-strong National Association of Evangelicals, and he claims to be favoured with a telephone consultation with President Bush every Monday. If I had wanted to interview real extremists by modern American standards, I'd have gone for 'Reconstructionists' whose 'Dominion Theology' openly advocates a Christian theocracy in America.

...

Another of my television interviewees was Pastor Keenan Roberts, from the same state of Colorado as Pastor Ted. Pastor Roberts's particular brand of nuttiness takes the form of what he calls Hell Houses. A Hell House is a place where children are brought, by their parents or their Christian schools, to be scared witless over what might happen to them after they die. Actors play out fearsome tableaux of particular 'sins' like abortion and homosexuality, with a scarlet-clad devil in gloating attendance. These are a prelude to the piece de resistance, Hell Itself, complete with realistic sulphurous smell of burning brimstone and the agonized screams of the forever damned.

After watching a rehearsal, in which the devil was suitably diabolical in the hammed-up style of a villain of Victorian melodrama, I interviewed Pastor Roberts in the presence of his cast. He told me that the optimum age for a child to visit a Hell House is twelve. This shocked me somewhat, and I asked him whether it would worry him if a twelve-year-old child had nightmares after one of his performances. He replied, presumably honestly:

I would rather for them to understand that Hell is a place that they absolutely do not want to go. I would rather reach them with that message at twelve than to not reach them with that message and have them live a life of sin and to never find the Lord Jesus Christ. And if they end up having nightmares, as a result of experiencing this, I think there's a higher good that would ultimately be achieved and accomplished in their life than simply having nightmares.

I suppose that, if you really and truly believed what Pastor Roberts says he believes, you would feel it right to intimidate children too.

We cannot write off Pastor Roberts as an extremist wingnut. Like Ted Haggard, he is mainstream in today's America.

And I agree with Arthur that calling this child abuse is understating the matter. To bring it full circle... one of the reasons I am going dual is because of my fear of the America these kids will build. More soon...

ciascuno un vittimo

K, he's got my vote

Seems some fundy-mental-ists think that Barack Obama is the Antichrist foretold in prophecy. Now I want to vote for him just to rile them up:

Very charming isn't he? Raised in a Moslem world, (Indonesia) with protestant upbringing..I'm watching him. I'm always aware when Republicans and Democates, and Independants, far left, far right, think this man is the cat's meow. They never agree on anything.

[...]

Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, born in Hawaii, raised in Chicago, was a little known Illinois state senator as recently as last year.

Now he's the states Democratic US Senate canidate, He will win, because now he is unopposed. I am watching everyone very carefully, especially since this chip is on the horizon, which I believe is connected with the mark.

The antichrist is not going to come in with devil horns on his head, and make an announcement...Hello all. I am the expected antichrist!!! I can see how people are going to be fooled when the AC does show up. He is going to be a charismatic fellow, with all of the answers for the worlds woes. Why not start in the US, since I believe that is where he is going to rise out of?? "who referred to Obama as a man who can help heal the division in our nation". Only God can HEAL our nations divisions!!!

[...]

Yes, it is uncanny the way that people are flocking to him. He has an eerie magnetism. I watched his speech, and I was almost spellbound. He said ALL of the right things. Even the tv commentators said that they had never heard such a good speech at a convention before. I'm going with my gut on this one. My sister and I both feel something "spooky" about this guy, but can't quite figure out what it is. It is odd that strangers come up to him on the street. Why would they do that, unless they were drawn to him.

You are right GodSaves, we are supposed to watch, and those that do not, aren't very bright to say the least. Jesus didn't give us His word with all of the information in it for no apparent reason...Grace.

[...]

Oh, I can see that part of the "big story". That has nothing to do with his "drawing power" with EVERYONE, even with us "whities" so to speak. When the whites start accepting a black man over a white man, and the white man has a great political career, then that is either a miracle from God, or the part of a bigger plan. Mans bigotry will never change as long as we are on this earth!!! This white man who had a great career in politics, is SUDDENLY shamed by a scandal. I think it was part of the bigger picture, so Obama will be the shew in for the Senate. By his demeanor alone, that tells me that it is a spirit of deception that this guy is operating under.

[...]

Let's just say for a moment that there was a powerfull man right now waiting in the wings to bring peace to the middle East.Let's say for a moment that I believe that a man will come.He would have to have a very great persuation on American christians and the Jews in order for the next temple to be built.

Jean Marie lestinger is a Jewish priest next in line for the Papacy.From what I've read that he has wrote,he is anxious to let the Jews have their Temple,A very Powerfull charasmatic man,A very likable man.

Just a thought,Isn't it funny also that Kerry has now found out that he comes from jewish fathers,just like Madaline Allbright found out.

I don't know if it means anuthing but it's interesting.Just like that Israelie astronaunt that died over Palistine Taxas,that Teacher in the explosion before that was Jewish also.Like 1 died trying to make it to heaven and the next died coming back from heaven in Palistine.

[...]

He may be an antichrist, if he speaks against Christ. But is he THE antichrist? find out if hes jewish or not.

[...]

I just found a post on Obamas website from a Jewish girl. Barak (different spelling) means "lightening" in Hebrew. Luke 10:18 ~ And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

I didn't even like Senator Tuvok all that much until now...