perfidy

Far be it for me to get all high and mighty about religious people, being a-religious myself, but the ongoing Catholic priest child-abuse scandal is just too much to take.

The Dallas Morning News is working on an investigation that has found that orders of priests (e.g. Franciscans) sometimes shipped known abusers overseas without notifying the receiving diocese of the priest's background, even though internal diocese records reflected known instances of child abuse. Not only has the Catholic' preisthoods' tradition of keeping its own house in order privately become a contempt for the well being of their flock, but it now turns out they can't be trusted to be straight with each other. A more pious man than I might draw from this lessons about the fallibility of humans and the imperfections inherent in human ethical and moral codes, but I just see a bunch of people letting terrible things go unpunished and then foisting the problem off on someone else.

It's big, it's ugly, and it needs to stop. NPR (yes, yes. Shut up.) coverage here.

Mr. EGERTON: One of the examples we'll be looking at in the first day of our coverage involves a priest named Frank Klep(ph), who had a long career working with the Salesians in youth institutions in Melbourne, Australia, and was repeatedly accused of sexual abuse. In the 1980s, the order moved him to Rome for a bit, a little cooling-off period, and then on to New York, and they wanted Frank Klep removed from duty with children, and in one sense he was. And he went back to Australia and he went right back to working, as the Salesians do, with poor and needy children. People began to go to the police at that point. Frank Klep was criminally convicted, got some community service time, went back to work again.

INSKEEP: As a priest?

Mr. EGERTON: As a priest all along. He is still a priest and he has admitted to us and to one of his victims that he did these things. Finally a new criminal i! nvestigation began later on in the 1990s, and his order moved him to Samoa and told his accusers that he was no longer in ministry, that he was in a very remote area, that he had no contact with children. And so we set out to simply test that claim. And we went to Samoa and the first day that we were there, my colleague went to church and saw children running up to Frank Klep after Mass, calling him by his first name. And he was pulling candy out of his pockets and handing it out to all the little kids. We later found that he was in very active ministry and sometimes tutors children alone in his bedroom.

INSKEEP: You found him there and talked to him, and he confessed to what he had done?

Mr. EGERTON: In one case he did. He denied all the others. He said that he didn't feel he was a threat to children any longer, that he had overcome whatever problems he had had in the past and didn't see that it was really a problem to be working with children.

! INSKEEP: Is Frank Klep the only Salesian priest you found with a rec ord like this?

Mr. EGERTON: No, no, not at all. Other cases that we'll discuss include a guy who started in Peru and has worked in at least six countries in the Western Hemisphere. He was sent to the archdiocese of Chicago with a specific letter of reference. We have the document saying that he has never showed any behavior that would give rise to concern about children's safety, and yet we have other documents from the Salesians showing that their own priests in a church disciplinary panel specifically said that he should never be allowed to work around children.

INSKEEP: Were there American priests who were shipped overseas?

Mr. EGERTON: Absolutely. Frequently, what we've seen are priests who worked for a long time in America but remained citizens of another country. They came here and, when trouble arose, there was an easy escape hatch, and that was to go back to their native lands.

INSKEEP: You've already told us of one case where someone outside the United States got in trouble and was shipped to the United States for a while.

Mr. EGERTON: That's right. It...

INSKEEP: Did that happen more than once?

Mr. EGE! RTON: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, we found some folks who are still here, still here.

Haw!

A cheap-ass pun merely to inform you that Major League Baseball has decided, after fan outcry, that Spider-Man bases are a no-go. The rest of the promotion will go off as planned but the bases, the perfect white diamonds that in their perfection are perfect miniatures of the perfect greater diamond they define, and whose perfect presence is the reason for the (perfect) game in the first place in all its hallowed glory and perfection yea forever and e'er amen, will not be touched.

Damn straight.

During Spider-Man(R) 2 Weekend, which has been scheduled during a segment of the 2004 Major League Baseball Interleague Play schedule, ballparks will feature in-park and on-field Spider-Man(R) signage and each Club will feature special Spider-Man(R) promotional events, including giveaways with the
world-renowned web crawler. In addition, highlights from Spider-Man(R) 2 will run on stadium video boards to promote the motion picture's June 30 release. Major League Baseball Properties and the 15 participating Clubs will promote Spider-Man(R) 2 Weekend locally in each market and nationally.

Muckracker Matt Drudge translates.

In a move that has purists howling, Major League Baseball has agreed to decorate its bases -- and pitching-mound rubbers and on-deck circles -- with a spider-web pattern as part of a promotion for the release of Sony Corp.'s "Spider-Man 2" next month.

The superhero sequel is set to open in theaters June 30. "`Spider-Man 2' Weekend" will start Friday, June 11, and all 15 MLB teams playing at home have agreed to participate for one or more games, the WALL STREET HOURNAL reported on Wednesday.

The deal is baseball's latest attempt to develop a splashier national marketing image. "In an ultracompetitive sports-entertainment environment, you have to take risks," says Tim Brosnan, MLB's executive vice president for business.

Count me among the howlers. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

See if you can spot what's wrong in this short piece from the New York Times:

SUDAN REGAINS HUMAN RIGHTS SEAT: Sudan was elected to another three-year term on the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights, but the United States delegation, citing allegations of ethnic cleansing in Sudan's western Darfur region, walked out of the meeting before the vote. The deputy representative of Sudan, Omar Bashir Manis, accused the United States of "shedding crocodile tears," and said American forces had committed atrocities against prisoners and civilians in Iraq. Sudan ran uncontested, as one of four nations chosen by the African Regional Group to fill four allotted vacancies on the commission. Daniel B. Schneider (NYT)

Now that's rich. Not only is the Sudan home to a continuing human-slavery industry, and not only has the Sudan been the site of various atrocities, imbroligos, attempted genocides, and general antihumanitarian mayhem for the past fifty years, but they are also a member of the UN's Human Rights council and have the temerity to claim that the actions of some US soldiers and civilians are worthy of scorn in comparison. The difference between us and them: we're punishing soldiers for humiliating and torturing POWs; they're harboring slave traders. Good for our delegates for walking out of that vote.

Not that all this is surprising or anything; it just gets my goat. When the Sudan can score hits off your human rights record, you know it's been a bad week.

Practitioners of the religion of peace have once again managed to piss off alot of people.

Last week the Hamtramck, MI City Council gave "initial approval" to allowing city mosques to broadcast calls to prayer over loudspeakers in a decision sure to piss off both infidels in general as well as muslims who might want to sleep in that day.

Not surprisingly, the council completely caved to muslim demands with a unanimous vote of support. Don't want to offend anyone, don't you know. Well, except for people who don't want to hear it, which is the rest of the city. Final approval was expected at last night's meeting.

Leaders of the city's muslims claimed that infringing on their right to make a goddamned racket through loudspeakers was actually infringing on their right to practice their religion, going on to claim that it was in their tradition to do so. I'm no more an expert on Islam than the next kaafir but as best I understand it, Islam did pretty well for itself through the 13 centuries that passed BEFORE electric amplification. And don't try and tell me that none of Hamtramck's umma has a damned watch to tell him when he's supposed to get down to some Mecca-facing.

We know though that the legal issues in question- noise ordinances, rights of religion- are only the mechanism muslim leaders are using to proselytise. Masud Khan, head of the Al-Islah Islamic Center, initiated this whole loudspeaker business. Pleased with the council vote, and after the requisite Allah-thanking, he added,

"Hamtramck is going to be a pioneer city for the whole United States."

At least, that's what Andy Rooney thinks. That's the actual title of the piece. I never liked the pretentious blowhard much before, but now I really can't stand him. Read this article, and bask in the awesome disregard and complete lack of understanding exhibited therein. Whenever I have seen an interview with troops in the field, they are constantly saying - in complete contradiction to Rooney - how they are proud to fight, knowing that they are preserving the liberties and safety of Americans back home; even of fat condescending fucktards like Rooney. This excrement is a classic example of the worst kind of liberal contempt for, and lack of comprehension of, the military.

It seems that the number one google search result for the word Jew is a real corker about killing them all and such. That will not do. There's an initiative going around the weblog world to pepper posts with links to the Wikipedia page defining Jew, as I have done twice here, in an effort to googlebomb the judenhass back to their dark little Bavaria of the mind.

Thanks to the beautiful and talented Kathy Kinsley for the pointer.

In a blow to those who think slippery slopes don't exist-- and in a spine-crushing suplex to decency, common sense, and responsible government-- the city of Port Orange, FL has outlawed outdoor smoking on public property when kids are present.

That's right. If you're in the park, and even one scabby-kneed diaper-wearing drool factory is around-- even if said drool factory is thirteen and ho'ed up like Britney Spears-- you're in trouble. You get three warnings. Then you get up to 60 days of jail.

I'm of two minds about smoking bans. My libertarian side opposes them unequivocally, but my opportunistic side absolutely loves that I can go out to a bar without reeking like an ashtray for twelve hours afterwards. I mean, loves it. I love it. Love it.

Love. It.

Here's a question-- in towns that ban smoking in bars and restaurants, why can't the town government regulate smoking like they do booze? If city hall issues, say, 300 liquor licenses, why can't they draw up and issue 100 smoking licenses too? That way we would ensure that the spirit of the law-- that patrons and workers not be automatically exposed to dense clouds of toxins-- is observed, while at the same time giving those people who do enjoy cancer the opportunity to do so.

Gaze in wonder at the stupidest patent I have seen in quite a while. I've been with pair.com since '95 or so. From the beginning, they've offered "vanity domains" of the form vanity.pair.com. In addition you've been able to form domains such as whatever.soletta.com since the very beginning.

This is a patent for that naming strategy. It was filed in 1999, many, many years after this technique was first used, publicly. Even the slightest level of real patent examination or search would have revealed this. The patent's owners are now vigorously suing various entities. They were stupid, though -- they're apparently going after the big guys first. This patent will be invalidated, and their initial victims have the resources to ensure that it will happen.

They should have gone after the little guys first, 'cause they don't have the resources to fight. But...isn't the patent system supposed to be in place to protect those little guys? Not any more, it isn't. The patent system is a pseudo-monopolistic mechanism used by lawyers and large companies to bludgeon away competition from small companies, or to extort from their earnings.

Litigation around patents creates inefficiencies in our economy; these are growing rather exponentially. We are shooting ourselves in the foot with these stupid IP laws. It has to stop, or we're going to lose yet another competitive advantage...

My lovely wife, while preparing for our looming superbowl party in her monomaniacal yet adorable way, found this strange phenomenon:

A Republicans for Dean blog

The particular post linked above is all about using superbowl parties to hook people into shave their heads and wear the Dean saffron robes. Personally, I'm not a huge sports fan but if I went to watch the big game and was confronted with this, I'd be peeved. Belinda pointed out that the M.O. behind this concept is similar to that used by fundamentalists to witness to normal people. First you lure them in, then... bam! Hit 'em with God's truth.

It's not often that you end up calling a widow nasty names. Mel Carnahan was the governor, whose son, Randy Carnahan, was at the pilot in command of a small plan a few years ago that went down. When the accident happened, Carnahan was in the middle of thoroughly trouncing John Ashcroft in an election.

There's a little background on Aero-News Network, if you care to read more. You can also read the complete NTSB brief.

The bottom line is this: Parker-Hannifin makes vacuum pumps. Jean Carnahan sued them, claiming they were responsible for the accident. Her theory was that the vacuum pumps stopped. About a year ago the NTSB (the National Traffic Safety Board) finished its exhaustive review of the accident. Their conclusion? The pilot failed to control to airplane properly, even though he had functioning, backup equipment. Very specifically, they found that the vacuum pumps were operating normally at the time of impact. In other words, the vacuum pumps did not fail. The NTSB can make this determination because they are able to gauge the angular momentum that the pumps have (due to spinning action) at the time of impact. They are very experienced in making these kinds of judgements, and they're not wrong about it.

The funny thing about NTSB reports is that, while they're by far the most authoritative and scientific study of transporition accidents, they're not admissible in court. The jury doesn't get the hear the official scientific opinion of on what happened. They're allowed to hear the ramblings of a trial attorney, who's paid an enormous sum to mislead them. And yes, misleading is exactly what's happened in this case.

Jean Carnahan is fully aware that her son was at fault in the accident. She is also fully aware that Parker-Hannifin's vacuum pumps did not fail in the accident. She pursued the case anyway, and has won a $4 million settlement from the manufacturer, after suing for over $100 million.

Jean Carnahan, you are a bad person. A lot of people are going to lose their livelihoods; these aviation companies are small, and these kinds of things are really hurtful to the industry. But you don't seem to give a shit about them, and it strikes me as pathetic that you honor the memory of your dead husband and son by lying in court for money. You are an example of exactly what is wrong with ethics in this society.

You suck.

By way of TL Hines, Writer, we hear of a practical joke of quite monstrous proportions. Yahoo Entertainment News reports that a disgruntled Japanese Tourism Official, known only as M.L. Tanaka has painstakingly created a faux Japanese-English phrase book that gives dangerously incorrect English translations of common phrases.

Among the nearly 2300 incidents reported to the Japanese Embassy:

• A 29-year-old Tokyo man visiting San Francisco for the first time meant to ask a female store clerk, "May I please have film for my camera?" But what he actually said was, "Would you place your copious breasts in my mouth?" He was slapped in the face, then got tossed out by the manager.
• Four family members from Osaka were thrilled see their favorite American singer coming out of a ritzy store in Beverly Hills. While waving frantically, they shouted out what they believed to be, "We love you so much." Unfortunately, what they really said was, "We're here to take your head." The four were arrested and detained for six hours by police.
• A 45-year-old tourist from Okinawa looking for the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem thought he was asking a group of young men, "I am lost. Which way is uptown?" In reality, he said, "I know martial arts. May I kick your ass?" He was chased five blocks before being rescued by police.

Five blocks. In Harlem.

"The man who compiled this dictionary clearly went out of his way to wreak havoc," says New York hotel concierge Jacqueline Porseman, who arranges tours for many VIP guests from Japan. No kidding. Be kind to the next Japanese tourist who respectfully asks to kick your ass, for he knows not what he does.

Not satisfied with taxing you until you bleed, and not returning any noticeably improved service for said tax, the Bay State has engineered the following scam. Here's how it works:

When it's time to renew your registration, you decide to do so online. It's faster, easier, you don't have to deal with surly registry people, and they don't have to deal with the surly public. Everybody wins.

And after a few weeks, then 2 months, pass without a new sticker in the mail, you might begin to wonder what's up. After you get pulled over for having an expired sticker on your plate, you start making some calls.

The registry demands $15 for a new sticker. You explain you've already paid $40-odd online. You show the receipt. The registry will not accept the credit card statement or website receipt as proof of payment. More specifically, they won't accept it as current, because what you are REALLY doing is saying you lost your replacement and are trying to scam a new one on the cheap by saying you never got it. I am not making this up. The registry can do no wrong, only fend off the cheating masses always trying to get over. Then say it's the Postal Service's fault for losing your replacement.

So if you like driving a legal car, you have to pony up the extra $15, in essence to replace the replacement you already paid for online. Renewing online, so quickly and easily, actually costs more in the long run as you ultimately have to pay twice.

The woman this happened to, who I know well, knows other people to whom this has happened. When she asked about it at a registry office, the workerwoman said there are
M A N Y people in the same boat, just within the reach of that little branch alone.

What the Commonwealth is doing is charging people twice for the same service, then blaming the taxpayer or the USPS for it. And that, my friends, is poop.

A little while back I mentioned a story about Fox News suing the Simpsons.

Despite that it sounded like just the kind of thing that might actually happen, Matt Groening says that he was kidding about that.

Dammit! I was punk'd!

I frequently disagree with his every "heh" and "indeed," but when he's right, he's right.

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, on those people who believe God will punish us for loving our gay brethren:

"Yeah: No-show for the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or what's going on in North Korea, but he's going to come down from the clouds and hurl lightning bolts if two guys get married."

This is truly sick.

The SNP Museum in Slovakia recently held an exhibition of photographs of women, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the death camps of the Holocaust. On September 7, 2003 a group of Arabs visited the exhibit and signed the guest book:

1. This exhibit testifies to the quality of organization and handling [of the mission]. From a historical perspective, what Hitler did to the Jews is exactly what they deserve. Still, we would have wished that he could have finished incinerating all the Jews in the world, but time ran out on him and therefore Allah's curse be on him and on them.
-- Khaled al-Zahraya from Saudi Arabia, 07.09.03

2. This is a museum showing a restaurant [specializing in] Jewish meat, which is what they deserve. Sons of apes and pigs. The day after the attempt to murder Ahmad Yasin.
-- 'Umar al-Da'm, Yemen. 07.09.03

3. The most beautiful sights of Jews.
-- Ibrahim al-'Arimi, Sultanate of Oman, 07.09.03

4. I say what they all say, and will just add that they [Jews] are cursed in this world and the next.
-- Madih, Yemen. 07.09.2003

These individuals went to a Holocaust museum to gloat. Truly sickening, in a completely literal sense. Gives the argument in this Daniel Pipes article a human face. This article, by Charles Jacobs, covers some similar territory. Links via lgf.

[wik] Mark Steyn chimes in with a story about disappearing Sudanese penises. (Now there's a sentence you won't see every day.) Read the whole thing, but this part was interesting to me:

For one thing, a week after the Malaysian Prime Minister told an Islamic summit that their "enemies," the Jews, control the world and got a standing ovation from 56 fellow Muslim leaders, it's useful to be reminded that the International Jewish Conspiracy is comparatively one of the less loopy conspiracies in the Islamic world...

It is, in that sense, the perfect emblematic tale of Islamic victimhood: The foreigners have made us impotent! It doesn't matter that the foreigners didn't do anything except shake hands. It doesn't matter whether you are, in fact, impotent. You feel impotent, just as -- so we're told -- millions of Muslims from Algerian Islamists to the Bali bombers feel "humiliated" by the Palestinian situation. Whether or not there is a rational basis for their sense of humiliation is irrelevant.

One of the things I'd feel humiliated about if I lived in the Arab world is that almost all the forms of expression of my anti-Westernism are themselves Western in origin. Pan-Arabism was old-school 19th century nationalism of the type that eventually unified the various German and Italian statelets. Nasserism was transplanted European socialism, Baathism a local anachronistic variant on 'tween-wars Fascist movements. The Arabs even swiped Jew hatred from the Europeans. Though there was certainly friction between Jews and Muslims before the 20th century, it took the Europeans to package a disorganized, free-lance dislike of Jews into a big-time ideology with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf and all the rest.

Even Islamic fundamentalism, though ostensibly a rare example of a homegrown toxin, has, as a practical matter, more in common with European revolutionary movements than with traditional expressions of Islam -- an essentially political project piggybacking on an ancient religion to create the ideology of choice for the world's troublemakers.

There's something pathetic about a culture so ignorant even its pathologies have to be imported. But what do you expect? The telling detail of the vanishing penis hysteria is that it was spread by text messaging. You can own a cell phone, yet still believe that foreigners are able with a mere handshake to cause your penis to melt away.

It becomes harder and harder for me to believe that the nastier strains of Islamic thought are actually limited to the lunatic fringe, as we are repeatedly told. This kind of thing is far more pervasive. And eventually, it is going to bite us in the ass if we keep ignoring it. This kind of malicious bile needs to be fought.

From Creative Loafing in Atlanta comes this heart-warmer. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it is a depressing little story.

"The FBI is here," Mom tells me over the phone. Immediately I can see my mom with her back to a couple of Matrix-like figures in black suits and opaque sunglasses, her hand covering the mouthpiece like Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder. This must be a joke, I think. But it's not, because Mom isn't that funny. . . . Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may have a problem. And you don't want that."

Yeesh. Now, I understand that the FBI need to follow up diligently on leads-- and in fact they probably could be about 150% better at that basic task-- but c'mon!