Golden Dawn's faces

These cute faces are from the last few days, when these gentlemen, members of the Greek parliament (Golden Dawn), were arrested. I like their looks. Why do they not like them? I guess they are jealous of them.

 

And here is a bonus portrait. No, this gentleman was not arrested, but he certainly looks good.

When the saints go marching in...

Breaking news! Pope John Paul II is to become a saint!

To become a saint in the Catholic Church, you must go through 4 steps, the last two being "beatification" and "canonization", each requiring that you perform a miracle. The church, taking a skeptical position, established a few centuries ago (1578 to be exact) the concept of "devil's advocate":

During the canonization process of the Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of a candidate. It was this person’s job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, and so on. The Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task was to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate. (From Wikipedia.)

The concept was abolished in 1983 by Pope John Paul II. He then started a fast process of canonization of a huge number of individuals. Let us see how the abolishment of devil's advocate affected the number of saints from 1800 onwards. A "scientific approach" helps here.

The plot was created from a list of saints by Pope. We make the assumption that once someone becomes saint, he or she stays saint forever. Up to 2013, the growth is approximated by an exponential function. This is due to Pope John Paul II who canonized 483 saints. Previous popes, from 1800 up to Pope John Paul II had canonized 242 saints altogether. Pope Benedict XVI was more cautious; he canonized 45 saints. Pope Francis started the papacy with dynamism. In his first year, he canonized 802 saints en masse. We can therefore not approximate the last part of the growth by a classical function. Only a generalized function works. If you have trouble with the concept of a delta function, here is an application which will make you understand it well. Thanks to the current pope.

Neo-nazis in Greece, their arrest

Talking about Nazis, most newspapers in the world (with the notable exception of the Swedish Svenska Dagbladet) yesterday announced the unprecedented arrest of the thugs of Golden Dawn. The neo-nazi party has now, by change of law, been classified as a criminal organization. Despite that it is represented in the Greek Parliament by 18 or so members, their head, Nikos Mihaloliakos was arrested, along with other 15 party members. They face hundreds of charges, including the recent killing of Pavlos Fyssas by one of the Golden Dawn executioners.

Golden Dawn has existed since 1980, but nobody took it seriously. Taking advantage of the financial catastrophe, Golden Dawn appealed--as is usual in such cases--to the "patriotism" of the Greeks, offered quick and dirty solutions to the immigration problem (beat them up or kill them), and other popular measures. It is thus that it received votes from those whose brains consist of haystack.

Here is a picture of the head of the group, Nikos Mihaloliakos, arrested yesterday:

He does not look very happy. But that's normal. He never does.

Look at my previous posting about neo-nazis in Sweden. Those in Greece are probably worse, the worst of the lot. However, many people still care and will look at them disapprovingly if they dare enter the bus with their version of the swastika:

Neo-nazis in Sweden: on the train to Stockholm

From time to time, there are groups of neo-Nazis in Sweden, even here in Uppsala, demonstrating against immigrants. According to wikipedia, there are several  of them.

Yesterday, my girlfriend, on the train to Stockholm, saw a group of those, men and women, who "looked scary". Shaved heads, swastika tatoos, leather jackets and boots, black outfit, radiating hatred from everywhere, even up the wazoo. That's the idea, of course, to bully by their mere presence. To intimidate. To make you feel unwanted. To threaten. To set themselves apart. To always be on the edge of violence.

They were abominable. And they knew it and enjoyed being so.

The amazing thing was the reaction of the train passengers.

None.

Nobody even bothered to look. As if it was a normal thing. Just another bunch of crazy Swedes, dressed in one of those weird uniforms, we don't care, let them be, they are part of us. What? Could they even be thinking they were part of them? No reaction. None, whatsoever. Not a single look. Not a comment. Nothing. Nada.

I received a text message from her:

I feel threatened. It's horrible.

 Take a picture, I told her, let me see. I'll post it on my blog. Of course, she was more wise, and did not take one.

But the story doesn't end here. At some point, a woman enters wearing a hijab. She sat down and didn't speak to anyone. Immediately, heads turn towards her. There are no discussions, no comments, but people stare. They stare and stare and, perhaps, they disapprove. Of course, nobody will say anything. On the right side, the nazis. On the left side, the woman with the hijab. My girlfriend told me:

She was noticed. People look at her; they stare! But she poses no threat!

This is a first-hand incident and, by itself, of course, it proves nothing. But you know what I suspect and what everyone who had been on that train and was not part of the locals would have suspected: that nazis were as if they were part of the norm, whereas the hijabed woman was not.

It is not violence, fascism/nazism, which makes heads turn, but a Muslim woman with hijab, even though she poses no threat.

No wonder that so many people in Scandinavia supported Breivik, after his massacre, so much so that all online newspapers had to close down for a couple of days in order to remove the supporting comments and in order to start moderating all reader's comments. To this date, Breivik has lots of supporters.

Ex-Pope Benedict XVI and Piergiorgio Odifreddi

The recent piece of news that Benedict XVI, a.k.a. Joseph Ratzinger, replied to a mathematician's (P. Odifreddi) letter is quite interesting. A response to Odifreddi's book, Caro Papa, ti scrivo (Dear Pope, I'm writing to you), the ex-Pope claims, among other things,

A. I never tried to cover up these things [peadophilia in the Catholic Church]

and

B. It's also not a motive for comfort to know that, according to sociological research, the percentage of priests guilty of these crimes is no higher than in other comparable professional categories.

Really?

Let us examine claim A.

In his book, The Case of the Pope, the distinguished human rights lawyer and judge Geoffrey Robertson, QC, writes (article 53, page 42):

In 2001, the Vatican actually congratulated Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux for refusing to inform police about a paedophile priest and for giving him parish work despite his confession of guilt. `I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration', wrote Cardinal Castrillon Hojos, with the personal approval of John Paul II and other senior cardinals, including the head of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger.

Cardinal  Ratzinger, as a head of CDF, before becoming pope, did know about child abusers and was personally responsible for not informing the police. Quite simply, the "honour" of the church was more important than turning criminals to the police. Instead, the ex-pope and other Church leaders, applied the principle that

even sex with minors becomes another sin to be forgiven

and, simply, moved the offending peadophiles to another parish where they were free to re-offend and have sex with more children. This thing was going on for decades in all countries where the Catholic Church has a strong presence.

The ex-pope's job of covering up was aided by the fact that

Catholics are indoctrinated from their childhood that priests take the place of Jesus Christ and are to be obeyed at all costs, and never questioned or criticized. (Thomas P. Doyle)

 Let us examine claim B.

The percentage of priests, the ex-Pope says, who are paedophiles, is not higher than other comparable professional categories. Is he crazy, or what? Why, priests are supposed to be pillars of morality, and, especially Catholic priests have given up any kind of sexual life in order to serve god. Therefore, it is totally unacceptable, for the Church Leader, to claim that priests are no better or worse than others. They should, by definition, be better. Well, we know they are not, and we know, as a matter of fact, that the Catholic Church had become a paradise for anyone who wanted to have sex with minors. Statistics, in this case, do not lie.

Sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church has been at a level considerably above that in any other organization, and that it has been covered up by many bishops with the support and the direction of the Vatican. (The Case of the Pope, p.6.)

So, the ex-Pope's reply is mere bullshit.

BBC claims that

it is thought to be the first time that Benedict has publicly rejected personal responsibility for covering up abuse.

To this date, the ex-Pope, by not replying directly, avoided responsibility. Now, he tells us he is not responsible. Evidence shows this is not the case.


And, finally, let us read another claim of the ex-Pope in his reply to Odifreddi:

C. In any event, one must not stubbornly present this deviance as if it were a nastiness specific to Catholicism.

Yes, here, we must agree with him. Nastiness is not specific to Catholicism. It permeates any kind of religion, to various degrees, but all religions are more harmful than useful.