The Guardian posted an excellent article about paedophelia in the the Catholic Church. I’ll sum up the important parts (if I directly quote here, I quote the Guardian, not the Archbishop Silvano):

• “An international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union [...] accused the Catholic Church of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
• “Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, defended the church by claiming that ‘available research’ showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse“. Allow me to paraphrase: official Vatican statistics state that every 20th to 60th catholic priest actively molests/molested children. When you consider that these numbers are very likely to be lower than the actual numbers, and that only a small percentage of pedophiles molest children, that leaves us with very alarming numbers of pedophile priests.
• The Archbishop added that “problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger”.
• He also said that “the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not pedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males. [...] The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would ‘be more correct’ to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males. ‘Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.’ ” To paraphrase again: the majority of the priests involved in child abuse are not pedophiles – they merely, amongst other things – force fellatio and anal sex on young boys, abusing their social authority society gives them to do that. That’s much better than “paedophilia”, we all agree on that, Mr. Tomasi.
• The Catholic Church has so far payed over two billion (!) Dollar in compensation to victims in the US.

Seriously, what is going on? The Catholic Church openly admits that they have sexually abused and exploited thousands of children (note: “thousands” just refers to the last few years), states that it’s not a big deal really because “only 1.5-5%” of the priests are pedophiles, says that it’s not an issue due to the fact that priests are not actually pedophiles but just ephebophiles, and furthermore declares that we shouldn’t accuse them because in other religions things are going not so well either?

And you support this organization with your tax-money? You pray to a God these people serve? You allow them to teach our children in public schools?

And just in case you forgot:

• The Pope officially declared a few months back that the use of condoms makes AIDS worse, not better (this probably costed many thousand people their lives, due to the fact that they listen to what this guy says).
• The Brasilian Archbishop recently excommunicated a 9 year old girl because of an abortion – she had been raped by her father and was pregnant with twins. Giving birth would have killed her, so the doctors decided to perform an abortion. The Archbishop was actively and openly supported by the Pope.
• The roman catholic PAX bank bought stocks in defence, tobacco and birth control companies. Of course the bank had previously advertised ethical investment funds, claiming to avoid arms and tobacco companies along with organisations that do not adhere to Catholic beliefs.
• In Ireland, several thousand children (perhaps much more) were systematically molested by nuns and priests.
• I could go on for another couple of hours with this.

Huffingtonpost writes about the US patriot act:

In the debate over the PATRIOT Act, the Bush White House insisted it needed the authority to search people’s homes without their permission or knowledge so that terrorists wouldn’t be tipped off that they’re under investigation.

Let’s see what they actually did with it:

Only three of the 763 “sneak-and-peek” requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases, according to a July 2009 report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Sixty-five percent were drug cases.

In conclusion, in the year 2008 the patriot act – which is still valid – was used in 0.39% of the cases for the reason it was officially implemented for.

(via Fefe)

Only if both wife and husband are Jewish, the state of Israel legally acknowledges marriages.

Israel, whose Jewish population of 5.6 million accounts for 41 percent of worldwide Jewry, has obstructed intermarriage between its Jewish and Arab citizens by refusing to recognize such marriages unless they are performed abroad.

And there’s a new campaign now:

Israel has launched an advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.

No matter which religion or organization does things like that: I find it highly offensive, inhumane and wrong.

According to the campaign’s organizers, more than 200 Israelis rang a hot line to report names of Jews living abroad after the first TV advertisement was run on Wednesday. Callers left details of e-mail addresses and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

(Sources: SZ.de and alternet.org via fefe)

Sending an ultra thin 42*37cm² packet from Germany to …

• Norway…
• Poland…
• Austria…
• France…
• Italy…
• you get the idea …

… costs 3.30 €.

Sending an ultra thin 42*37cm² packet from Germany to …

• Germany …

… costs 4.40 €.

Arglarglargl …

A few rather unknown facts about the so-called pandemic:

• The superawesome treatment Tamiflu decreases the infection with the virus from 6 days to … 5 days. Wow, that is quite awesome.
• There are already strains immune to the vaccine.
• The vaccine was only tested on several thousand patients. That’s not enough for a vaccine which will be given to many hundreds of million of people (at least 30 million in Germany alone).
• Now it gets crazy – probably, because we’re going to start talking about the US: vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. If problems arise, a federal court handles claims and decides who will be paid from a special fund (here is a good overview about that topic).
• And it becomes even funnier: more than half the children in England taking the swine flu drug suffer side-effects (as nausea and insomnia), N = 248. Researchers concluded that the “burden of side-effects needs to be considered” when deciding whether to treat children with preventative measures.

A very famous writer once wrote something very useful. I highly recommend people in charge to apply it to our current situation:

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A teenager sent by his parents to a boot camp to cure his Internet addiction died after he was beaten by camp supervisors, police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region claimed yesterday. [He] was put in solitary confinement within hours of his arrival and was then beaten to death by his trainers after they “scolded” him for running too slowly.

(Source: Global Times)

You probably know what a flashmob is: people meet up and do something weird, like freezing at the same time (examples: here and here), or reading the German constitution as protest to censorship laws.

Wikipedia writes:

A flashmob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

The city of Braunschweig, Germany, has officially declared flashmobs to be illegal. The reasons:

• Public space is only to be used for traffic and transportation, as in transferring yourself or goods from flat A to flat B, or from flat A to shop B, or from shop A to shop B.
• Flashmobbing is a danger to public property. In this case, meeting in front of the castle and having a peaceful picnic without any form of political protest or interest could damage the cobbled pavement (!!), on which thousands of pedestrians walk by every day,

My fellow Braunschweigians :) … I’d very much recommend to show up at the castle on the 8th of August, 4pm. Bring a snack with you, and a towel (“always bring your towel”). We still live in a democracy, after all.

Updates siehe Ende des Postings.

Traurig, aber wahr: in Deutschland gibt es ab sofort Internetzensur. Das heißt, dass kinderpornographische Inhalte nicht aus dem Internet genommen werden, und dass die Täter strafrechtlich verfolgt werden, sondern dass auf den sehr wenigen kinderpornographischen Internetseiten, die existieren, ein kleines Stopp Schild eingebaut wird, dass von Laien in 15 Sekunden umgangen werden kann (Kinderpornographie wird im Regelfall nämlich über Tauschbörsen oder private Webringe verbreitet, wo die Zensur völlig wirkungslos ist).
Randnotiz: die 130.000 gesammelten Unterschriften gegen das Gesetz – damit die erfolgreichste E-Petition in der deutschen Geschichte – wurden einfach ignoriert.

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Der Spiegel schreibt heute:

Litauen verbietet Unterricht über Homosexualität

Wer in den Schulen Litauens über Homosexualität redet, macht sich künftig strafbar. Informationen darüber hat das Parlament an allen öffentlichen Orten verboten, wo sich Kinder und Jugendliche aufhalten können. Menschenrechtler empört das Gesetz – sie ziehen vor Gericht.[...]
In dem baltischen Land mit knapp 80 Prozent Katholiken unter den 3,4 Millionen Bürgern hat der Einfluss der Kirche seit der staatlichen Unabhängigkeit 1991 massiv zugenommen.

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