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One-Time Priest Crusades for Abuse Victims Suing Catholic Church

Richard Allen Greene
CNN
Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
ex-priest defends abused kids
© Unknown
Patrick Wall as a seminarian and junior monk at Saint John’s Abbey and University in Minnesota in the late 1980s.
As a young man studying for the priesthood, Patrick Wall imagined life as a professor and football coach at a Catholic university.

It didn't work out that way. Two decades later, Wall has not only left the Catholic Church, he has become one of its most tireless opponents.

He's an ex-priest, driven from ministry by the feeling that his superiors used him to help cover up sex abuse by other clergymen.

And he's using the training he gained as a priest to work with victims of abuse who want to take the church to court.

Since 1991, Wall says he has consulted on more than 1,000 abuse cases, helping lawyers pick apart defenses mounted by dioceses from Alaska to Australia.

Now a senior consultant at the law firm of Manly and Stewart in Southern California, Wall spoke to CNN on the sidelines of a recent conference for legal and religion scholars at Cardiff Law School in Wales.
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Light Saber

UNESCO Gives Palestinians Full Membership


EuroNews
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:53 UTC
UNESCO palestine membership
© Unknown
The United Nations' cultural agency decides to give Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that will boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations. UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on Sept. 23. The United States, Canada and Germany voted against Palestinian membership. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa and France voted in favor. Britain abstained. Washington is likely to cut funding to UNESCO over the vote.

View video here
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Newspaper

Perry Tales : Perry's economic plan is Oil Industry wishlist to Santa.


The Rachael Maddow Show
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
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Heart - Black

US, New York: Fiend Attacks 'Occupy' Protester in Her Tent

Kevin Fasick and Candice M. Giove
New York Post
Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:38 UTC
Image
© Warzer Jaff
A pedal-powered generator lies idle yesterday in a wet and snowy Zuccotti Park.
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.

A sex fiend barged into a woman's tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.

"Pervert! Pervert! Get the f--k out!" said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.

"They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave," said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.

She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.

"We don't tell anyone," she said. "We handle it internally. I said too much already."

With temperatures in the low 30s and their gas-powered generators confiscated by the FDNY, protesters defiantly braved the cold as the occupation hit the 30-day mark.
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Che Guevara

US, New York: Occupy Wall Street tested by the cold after city takes heating gear


AM New York
Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
A supporter braves the elements in Zuccotti Park Saturday
Saturday's snowstorm tested the mettle of Occupy Wall Street protesters just a day after the FDNY confiscated the group's main heat sources, which the protesters are demanding be returned.

The protesters, represented by attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild, said that the confiscation of six generators and fuel on Friday was a pretext by the city to begin dismantling their lower Manhattan encampment, which has been in place since Sept. 17. The FDNY said cited r safety reasons.

"Contrary to the Mayor's public justifications, the seizures were not motivated by health or safety concerns," the group said in a letter Saturday addressed to FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano.

"Without articulating any identifiable hazard posed by the generators, the city removed a source of heat for hundreds of people one day before the correctly predicted onset of freezing temperatures and snow," the letter said.
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Bizarro Earth

Americans increasingly comparing Afghan war to Vietnam

Paul Harris
The Guardian
Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:06 UTC
Nato helicopter in Afghanistan
© Omar Sobhani/Reuters
A Nato helicopter flies above the site of the bomb blast in Kabul.
Latest deaths of US troops in an apparent Kabul suicide attack come as support back home for the war reaches a new low

The latest deaths of 13 Americans in Afghanistan in an apparent suicide bomb attack in Kabul comes at a moment when the US public's attitude to the long war is at an all-time low.

A poll late last week, by CNN and ORC International, revealed that only 34% of Americans now support the war, one percentage point down on the previous all-time low. It found that 63% of Americans are now opposed to the war. The deaths of yet more Americans in a conflict that has already cost the lives of more than 1,700 American soldiers is only likely to see support fall further. Indeed the poll showed that some 58% of Americans say that the conflict is now similar to the Vietnam war.

The war is now a serious problem in Obama's strategy for the 2012 election. For a president who already faces discontent over accusations from the left of the Democratic party that he is too close to the Republicans, the Afghan war represents another area where he is out of step with many on his own side. The same poll showed that some six in ten Republicans still supporting the war, compared to just a quarter of Democrats.
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Heart

Criminalise War: Tun Mahathir

criminalisewar
YouTube
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:22 UTC
Keynote address of HE Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia at the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that took place at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009.

Part 1
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Cult

Catholic Church Makes A Fortune In The German Porn Business


Die Welt/Worldcrunch
Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:30 UTC
German bishops porno publishing
© picture-alliance/ dpa/ANSA
The bishops gladly look the other way when it comes to the portfolio of the Weltbild Publishing House
Weltbild, one of Germany's largest publishing companies, happens to be owned and operated by the Catholic Church. But that has not stopped it from publishing books that many of the faithful find offensive.

"Weltbild," Germany's largest media company, sells books, DVDs, music and more -- and also happens to belong 100% to the Catholic Church. Few people knew about this connection until this month when Buchreport, a German industry newsletter, reported that the Catholic company also sells porn.

A Church spokesman responded: "Weltbild tries to prevent the distribution of possibly pornographic content."

Well, it's prevention efforts have apparently not been so successful. For more than 10 years, a group of committed Catholics has been trying to point out what is going on to Church authorities, and they are outraged at the hypocrisy of the spokesman's statement. In 2008, the group sent a 70-page document to all the bishops whose dioceses have shared ownership of Weltbild for 30 years, detailing evidence of the sale of questionable material.

Comment: The hypocrisy and corruption riddling the Catholic Church apparently knows no bounds. Money and power are their true gods.

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Arrow Up

Earthquake: Turkey Ends Search for Survivors, Toll Nears 600

Ibon Villabeitia and Evrim Ergin
Reuters
Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:05 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl
Turkish Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin (C) gestures while visiting a campsite for earthquake victims, set up at a stadium, in Ercis .
The death toll from last week's earthquake in southeast Turkey rose to 596 Sunday, the day after authorities stopped searching for survivors and focused on helping thousands of homeless families in crisis.

In Ercis, the town hit hardest by the 7.2 magnitude quake that devastated Van province on October 23, some shops reopened on Sunday, electricity was switched back on in parts of town and one bank's ATM started working.

But with barely any of Ercis's nearly 100,000 residents ready to return to their damaged homes with strong aftershocks still rattling the area, life is anything but normal. One aftershock Sunday morning registered at magnitude 5.3.

Winter is fast approaching, temperatures plunge at night, and young and old in particular are falling sick in tent encampments set up by relief agencies on the outskirts of town.

The government's disaster management website said more than 43,000 tents had been handed out in Van. Officials say that is more than needed because people whose homes are not so badly damaged are demanding tents as they feel safer under canvas.
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People

"Legal Immunity for Elite": Glenn Greenwald on Occupy Wall Street, Banks Too Big to Jail and the Attack on WikiLeaks

Alexander Higgins
Democracy Now
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:37 UTC
Glenn Greenwald nails the purpose of Occupy Wall Street Saying "It is not a Democratic Party organ... or demanding a single bill.... it is because the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it"


The prominent political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald comments on the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. "What this movement is about is more important than specific legislative demands. It...is expressing dissent to the system itself," says Greenwald. "It is not a Democratic Party organ. It is not about demanding that President Obama's single [jobs] bill pass or anything along those lines. It is saying that we believe the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it. And that's infinitely more important than specific legislative or political demands."
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