Author: R J Adams

Why do the rest of us have to suffer it? No matter which news media one tunes to the damn thing is there, in your face, headline news. It’s certainly not worthy of headline news. It might have been two or three weeks ago, but now it’s just a bunch of sad old men in red robes playing silly games with smoke and pretending to be righteous, upright, and saintly.

God knows, we’re only too well aware they’re not.

There are nigh on seven billion humans on this planet. According to Vatican figures only one point two million are Catholic. Given the Papal propensity for inflating figures (not just in the Vatican Bank), and allowing for many thousands disillusioned by the conduct of certain priests, plus lapsed believers, etc., we may assume the figure to be nearer one billion (and the sums are easier!). That makes an interested audience of around 14% of the world populace. Given that over half of them live in Latin America, Africa, and Asia…

…it leaves a North American and European Catholic audience of about five percent of the populace.^[1]

Does that truly justify treating this non-event, (from the standpoint of all other religious believers and non-believers) as earth-shattering news, worthy of dominating 60%-70% of every news program this week, and for the foreseeable future?

Most of the US channels have moved their news studios to Rome en masse. Even the BBC is besotted by the color of the smoke from the Sistine Chapel stovepipe.

The truth is Roman Catholicism is dying. Only in the less developed areas of the world, where good education is often lacking, are there any converts. Western Europe and North America have seen drastic reductions in the numbers of the faithful over the last three decades.

Is it any wonder? Anyone familiar with the horrors inflicted by Rome, in cahoots with the Irish government, on the Irish throughout the twentieth century would stand amazed that the religion still has any followers at all in that country.^[2]

We’ll probably never know what caused this one…

…to exit stage left so abruptly. All we can be sure of – it wasn’t just ill-health.

What we are seeing on our television screens in Rome right now are the leaders and hierarchy of a corrupt, cold-blooded, insensitive, business organization, with strong Mafia links.^[3]

They are about to decide who will be the next of their number to front this nefarious organization. The western world’s news media seems determined to ensure we’ll all bear witness.

^{[1] “How many Roman Catholics are there in the world?” BBC, March 7th 2013}

^{[2] “Ireland issues apology to the ‘fallen women’ it sent to Catholic workhouses” February 5th 2013}

^{[3] “Prosecutors investigate Vatican Bank mafia link” Telegraph, June 10th 2012}

Excuse me while I yawn, and attempt to stay awake long enough to write this post.

Yes, it’s that time of year (at least, in the great USofA) when the idiot politicians decree the clocks shall be wound forward an hour, so we’ll all lose sleep and arrive in work on Monday morning with matchsticks propping our eyelids open.

“No, I wasn’t out clubbing till the early hours, Mister Boss man, the bloody clock gained an hour in the middle of the night.”

“We must do it,” is the plaintive response of those who uphold this ancient and crazy tradition, “or the little kiddies will be standing in the dark every morning waiting for the school bus.”

Simple solution: let the schools start an hour later in winter, or, put the damned clocks to DST and leave them there permanently!

It’s no good. I can’t stay awake any longer. Here’s a short video by C G P Grey explaining how stupid it all is…zzzzz…zzzzz…

Close the door quietly on your way out.

This morning, by chance, the TV was set on the Weather Channel. Turning it on, I noted the phrase highlighted on the set behind the anchor was, “Climate Change”.

Interested, I upped the volume, just in time to hear the anchor state that some US university had just reported that 2012 was the warmest on record for X,000 years.

“Oh, good,” I thought, “at last the US media is beginning to recognize climate change as relevant.”

The anchor then went on to postulate that the northern hemisphere had been heading, in 2000 – 3000 years, towards another ice age. However, thanks to the increase in greenhouse gases and corporate pollution, this would not now occur.

I guess we all owe an immense debt of gratitude to our corporate leaders, for their foresight in saving us from freezing to death in 4013. Instead, we’ll all be fried by 2113.

Thank you to the owners of the Weather Channel – NBC Universal, Bain Capital, and the Blackstone Group (or, should we just call you by your real name – Lehman Bros!). Oh, no, sorry, Lehman Bros went bankrupt in 2008 due to it’s involvement in the subprime mortgage crisis which precipitated the depression from which we are only now beginning to recover.

Strange, that the two principle figures behind Lehman Bros, Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, should now be running the Blackstone group. One of their ventures is to cheaply acquire thousands of foreclosed homes and rent them to single parent families who can’t afford to buy.

Or, to put it another way, Peterson and Schwarzman are another pair of shits increasing their already vast wealth by creaming money off the poorest in society.

But, we can bow down and kiss their feet for saving us all from a life in igloos 2,000 years from now.

Moral: don’t believe a bloody thing you hear on the Weather Channel.

PS: Besides the Weather Channel, Bain Capital owns: AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino’s Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin’ Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys “R” Us, and the Warner Music Group.

Blackstone own: Tele-Denmark Communications, Equity Office Properties, Freescale Semiconductor, Michaels Stores, Nielsen Company, Travelport (Orbitz), United Biscuits, Biomet, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation.

All told, that lot should ensure we don’t freeze to death in the next two thousand years.