Happy Beltane / Illuminati Day / May Day

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med

And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel þu singes cuccu;

Ne swik þu nauer nu.

Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!

Pope charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. About time.

610x

Two German lawyers from Marktheidenfeld in Pope Benedict's home state of Bavaria have filed charges against the Pope in the International Criminal Court alleging crimes against humanity. The 16,500-word submission from Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel alleges “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

Full details are available in the Irish Times.

Scary self-proclaimed Christian 'prophet' Cindy Jacobs says gays in the US military caused bird deaths

Just in case you feel that life is too short to sit through the full, deranged, 12 minutes 44 seconds of nonsense, here's the core of her argument:

"According to biblical principles, marriage is between a man and a woman , so we have to say “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding. And you know there are actually some patterns that you can see where a nation will make a decision that is contrary to the principles of God and after that there is some kind of answer that God gives, being the God of creation, the God who created nature, but we don’t always understand what He’s saying.

Well, there’s something interesting we have been watching – let’s talk about this Arkansas pattern and say, could it be a pattern? We’re going to watch and see. But the blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas, well the Governor of Arkansas’ name is Beebe. And also, there was something put out of Arkansas called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by a former Governor, this was proposed, Bill Clinton. As so, could there be a connection between this passage [Hosea 4] and now that we’ve had the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell where people now legally in the United States have broken restraints with the Scripture because the Scripture says in Romans 1 that homosexuality is not allowed.

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air."

Bonkers.

Happy Feast of the Circumcision of Baby Jesus

2459
Circumcision by Francesco de Goya

Aside from being New Year's Day, 1st January was traditionally the day that marked the circumcision of Baby Jesus - perhaps one of the lesser-known of the Christian feast-days. And if you have a little time to spare, why not read up on the subsequent adventures of the Sacred Foreskin (or foreskins - don't ask me how that happened, I assume it must've been a miracle)?

A Christmas message from Ricky Gervais: Why I'm an Atheist

Ricky_gervais

Ricky Gervais has written a very clear, logical piece explaining the reasons why he doesn't believe in God(s) over at The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:

Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith.” If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”

Read the full article here.

Pope ogles topless men in the Vatican

From Russia Today:

"A usually staid weekly Papal audience was spiced up this week with an acrobatic performance by a troupe of topless men. The four performers dressed in white suits walked across the stage towards the Papal throne and surprised the Pope by whipping off their shirts before beginning an acrobatic performance on Tuesday. The Pope looked on as the men hoisted each other into the air, one on top of the other, three high."