Christmas

Midnight Mass is on!
Pope had a bitchin' ride up to the altar(representing and becoming the Body of Christ)on a trolley.
What a man cave!!$!

B Herr

Fascism=Extreme right-wing Catholic party? I would call that an accurate insight from my experiences with the catholic church.

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Illness made Hitchens a symbol of the honesty and dignity of atheism - Richard Dawkins - The Independent

On 7 October, I recorded a long conversation with Christopher Hitchens in Houston, Texas, for the Christmas edition of New Statesman which I was guest-editing.

He looked frail, and his voice was no longer the familiar Richard Burton boom; but, though his body had clearly been diminished by the brutality of cancer, his mind and spirit had not. Just two months before his death, he was still shining his relentless light on uncomfortable truths, still speaking the unspeakable ("The way I put it is this: if you're writing about the history of the 1930s and the rise of totalitarianism, you can take out the word 'fascist', if you want, for Italy, Portugal, Spain, Czechoslovakia and Austria and replace it with 'extreme-right Catholic party'"), still leading the charge for human freedom and dignity ("The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that's absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. And the origins of that are theocratic, obviously. The beginning of that is the idea that there is a supreme leader, or infallible pope, or a chief rabbi, or whatever, who can ventriloquise the divine and tell us what to do") and still encouraging others to stand up fearlessly for truth and reason ("Stridency is the least you should muster ... It's the shame of your colleagues that they don't form ranks and say, 'Listen, we're going to defend our colleagues from these appalling and obfuscating elements'.").

The following day, I presented him with an award in my name at the Atheist Alliance International convention, and I can today derive a little comfort from having been able to tell him during the presentation that day how much he meant to those of us who shared his goals.

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B Herr

My favorite Christopher Hitchens essay. I assume I enjoyed it because I was raised in the Catholic church, altar boy and all.

The fanatic, fraudulent Mother Teresa. The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud. Read more...

This unethical quack needs to be shut down.

 

 

Dr. Burzynski and the cult of personality of the "brave maverick cancer doctor"

via Respectful Insolence on 12/15/11

I thought I'd be leaving the topic of Dr. Stanislaw Burzysnki and his combination of Personalized Cancer Therapy for Dummies-level "personalized, gene-targeted cancer therapy" coupled with his "cancer-curing" antineoplastons, which have morphed into an orphan HDAC inhibitor used off-label as part of his pricey everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" combination of targeted therapies and old-fashioned chemotherapy. After all I figured that there would probably be nothing new to say before sometime in January, when he is schedule to appear before the Texas Medical Board to answer for his dubious medicine again, the first time since the 1990s.

Then I saw this story from the U.K.:

The family of a five-year-old girl with a rare form of brain cancer are hoping to raise £130,000 to send her to a US clinic which could be the only chance of saving her life.

Chiane Cloete's family in Enfield want her to be treated at the Burzynski Clinic in Texas after she was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of cancer.

The clinic's course of treatment, which aims to "switch on" the genes responsible for cancer suppression, is not available in Britain. Her father, Chris, a company director, stepped aside from his role this year to help her mother Andia look after their girl. The couple also have a two-year-old son Estian.

She is being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital where an MRI scan next Thursday will see whether the cancer is spreading and if she is fit to fly.

Mr Cloete said the discovery of the cancer meant the family's "whole world was turned upside down in a matter of seconds", adding: "She is like any normal child. We are just a normal family, looking after her is so intense and takes up so much time. She is so brave for her age and a fighter. I have no doubt we will get the funds needed. The snowball effect is starting to take an effect."

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Horribly fascinating story from the youngest Guantanamo prisoner. Click on the link for more.

FROM THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS WEBSITE

LRB · Mohammed el Gorani and Jérôme Tubiana · Diary: Guantánamo

From Vol. 33 No. 24 · 15 December 2011

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n24/mohammed-elgorani/diary

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Sorry Virginia