The anti-swine flu holy water dispenser

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu — an electronic holy water dispenser.

The terracotta dispenser, used in the northern town of Fornaci di Briosco, functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public washrooms — a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water.

“It has been a bit of a novelty. People initially were a bit shocked by this technological innovation but then they welcomed it with great enthusiasm and joy. The members of this parish have got used to it,” said Father Pierangelo Motta.

Catholics entering and leaving churches usually dip their hands into fonts full of holy water — which has been blessed by a priest — and make the sign of the cross.

But fear of contracting the H1N1 virus has led many in Italy — where some 15 people have died of swine flu — not to dip their hands in the communal water font.

“It’s great,” said worshipper Marta Caimm as she entered the church. “Thanks to this we are not worried about catching swine flu. It is the right thing for the times,” she said.

Luciano Marabese, who invented the dispenser, said he did so out of concern that fear of swine flu was eroding traditions.

And he is now blessing himself all the way to the bank.

“After all the news that some churches, like Milan’s cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world,” he said.

(Reporting by Eleanor Biles; Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Now what is the point of the holy water? The water can’t be all that holy, if people are afraid that is going to make them sick.  Holy by definition would indicate that it is pure and germ free.

He was worried that traditions were being eroded, so he invents a new tradition.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Great word from the Lord tonight at bible study. We Don’t have to worry about the H1N1 Influenza or the world economic crisis as God will super naturally protect and direct us as long as we stay under and close to his anointing. Just like the widow women and the woman of Shunem in 11kings chapeter 4. (Written by SOLW)

Not going to say where I found this story, but I found it to be kind of humorous.

I’m all for being protected from the H1N1 and the economic crisis. Yay!! But couldn’t a person say the same thing about the gov’t.  To paraphrase the above quote:

Great word from Prime Minister Harper or Obama. “Let me be clear, we will be protected from H1N1 and the economic crisis. Do not leave Canada or the USA” 

Have to love those pentecostal belivers though, they are always so jacked up and over the top about everything.

Nobel winner slams Bible as ‘handbook of bad morals’

LISBON (AFP) – A row broke out in Portugal on Monday after a Nobel Prize-winning author denounced the Bible as a “handbook of bad morals”.

Speaking at the launch of his new book “Cain”, Jose Saramago, who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, said society would probably be better off without the Bible.

Roman Catholic Church leaders accused the 86-year-old of a publicity stunt.

The book is an ironic retelling of the Biblical story of Cain, Adam and Eve’s son who killed his younger brother Abel.

At the launch event in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel on Sunday, Saramago said he did not think the book would offend Catholics “because they do not read the Bible”.

“The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people,” he was quoted as saying by the news agency Lusa.

Saramago attacked “a cruel, jealous and unbearable God (who) exists only in our heads” and said he did not think his book would cause problems for the Catholic Church “because Catholics do not read the Bible.

“It might offend Jews, but that doesn’t really matter to me,” he added.

Father Manuel Marujao, the spokesman for the Portuguese conference of bishops, said he thought the remarks were a publicity stunt.

“A writer of Jose Saramago’s standing can criticise, (but) insults do no-one any good, particularly a Nobel Prize winner,” the priest said.

Rabbi Elieze Martino, spokesman for the Jewish community in Lisbon, said the Jewish world would not be shocked by the writings of Saramago or anyone else.

“Saramago does not know the Bible,” the rabbi said, “he has only superficial understanding of it.”

The author caused a scandal in Portugal in 1992 with “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.”

The book depicted Jesus losing his virginity to Mary Magdalene and being used by God to control the world.

Saramago quit Portugal at the time and moved to Lanzarote, in the Spanish Canary Islands.

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Some things I learned from this story. (1) The easiest way to earn a Nobel Prize is to write a book. (2) It’s okay to offend catholics. (3) A person can actually quit a country. Who knew? If I can quit a country, does that mean I can start a country?

Seems to be a lot of irony involved in this story. The guy has a hate for the bible, but yet he chooses to write books that have biblical themes. So does that make his books, which are inspired by a “manual of bad morals”, into books of even worse morals?

He’s just jealous because people are not reading his book, whereas at least people buy the Bible and not read it.

Remind me never to get into Saramago’s head. I would not want to meet the cruel, jealous, and unbearable god that lives there.

Madonna buys luxury home for Jesus

By Bang

Madonna is buying her boyfriend a $2.7 million New York apartment.

The ‘Material Girl’ singer is reportedly splashing out the impressive sum so 23-year-old model Jesus Luz can be close to her $40million house in the US city.

A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “Madonna is buying Jesus an apartment in New York. She has her real estate agent searching for the perfect pad for him in the new neighborhood where she has just moved.

“She’s told them to spend no more than $2.7 million and the property has to be within walking distance of her townhouse. She is financing everything but Jesus will own it once it’s found and bought.

“She really wasn’t kidding when she told him he’ll never have to worry about money from now on.”

Other investments Madonna, 51, has made for her Brazilian-born lover are believed to include top DJ tuition and $48,000 of music equipment.

She also keeps him on her payroll and reportedly helped him to get his US visa renewed in December, and to land new modeling contracts.

However, while Madonna is prepared to invest in the home for Jesus, other sources claim she is wary of marrying him, in case he takes her fortune. The couple are instead planning a commitment ceremony.

A source said: “She is devoted to Jesus and has already started drawing up a guest list. The blessing will be at the Kabbalah centre followed by a reception at her New York house.

“It will not be a legal wedding. She is not taking any chances over her money again.”

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In a related story – catholics around the world are perplexed and suffering from mixed emotions. On the one hand, they are pleased that Madonna is looking after Jesus and that they are not living together. On the other hand, they think this is just creepy and it seems sort of blashpemous. Madonna marrying Jesus. I mean this is worse than the DaVinci Code. The Pope could not be reached for a comment, not that I tried very hard.

Does anyone besides me think that Madonna has some kind of weird religious imbalance going on here? She’s a follower of Kabbalah, her name is Madonna and ”she is devoted to Jesus.”

H1N1 flu stops Italians kissing saint’s blood

NAPLES, Italy (Reuters) – Fear of H1N1 flu will stop devout Neapolitans from performing the time-honored ritual of kissing the blood of their patron Saint Gennaro when the city’s annual festival begins later this month.

The decision to forbid kissing of the glass vial containing the saint’s blood was taken reluctantly by ecclesiastical and city authorities Monday, and has brought protests from local politicians.

The vial will be put on display in the city’s cathedral for a week from September 19 and the faithful will be allowed to touch it only with their foreheads.

Marco Di Lello, national co-ordinator of the Socialist Party, said the ban would “fuel the psychosis (over flu) which risks becoming unstoppable,” and appealed to the archbishop of Naples to try to have the ban revoked.

Last week, a 51-year-old man became Italy’s first fatal victim of the H1N1 flu virus, popularly known as swine flu, when he died in a Naples hospital.

In one of Italy’s best-known festivals, Saint Gennaro’s dried blood is said to liquefy twice a year, 17 centuries after his death. Some Neapolitans fear disaster may strike the city if the “miracle” does not occur.

Legend has it that when Gennaro was beheaded by pagan Romans in 305 A.D., a Neapolitan woman soaked up his blood with a sponge and preserved it in a glass vial.

The substance usually turns to liquid on September 19, the saint’s feast day, and on the first Saturday in May. The “miracle” was first recorded in 1389, more than 1,000 years after Gennaro’s martyrdom.

More scientifically minded skeptics say the phenomenon is due to chemicals present in the vial whose viscosity changes when it is stirred or moved.

Italy has not been among the nations hardest hit by the H1N1 flu virus, which has spread to at least 177 countries and caused at least 2,800 deaths, the World Health Organization says.

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Is it just me, but doesn’t kissing a vial full of blood seem weird? So, if I kiss this vial what exactly is supposed to happen to me, besides the possibility of getting H1N1. Wouldn’t kissing the vial give me immunity from the virus anyways. That would be my miracle. Kiss the vial, get H1N1 virus, but not get H1N1, because I kissed the vial.

Is it just me, part 2. Doesn’t it seem weird that a woman had the presence of mind to soak up the saint’s blood and put it into a vial? Who does that. I mean the guy has no head, there is probably blood everywhere, and she decides that it would be a good thing to go soak up some of this blood, just in case. Wonder if she kissed it back then?

What was she thinking? Hey that priest guy just got his head cut off. That’s so not cool. Hmm, look at this, I happen to have a sponge with me today at this beheading. Maybe I should go soak up some of the blood. I don’t think anyone would mind. Do I take it from the head or the body? Probably doesn’t matter anyways, blood is blood. I have to keep this somehow. I know, I’ll put it into a vial and give it to the catholic church. I’m sure they’ll know what to do with it. Wow! I’m a freakin hero. Too bad about the priest though, losing his head and all that. hmmph, what can you do, those Roman pagans are just a bunch of barbarians, they’re not civilized like us.

Suicidal Planet

By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON – Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.

The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet’s zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.

The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.

It’s a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier’s report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

“It’s causing its own destruction by creating these tides,” Hellier said.

The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide Angle Search for Planets team that found them.

The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature is about 3,800 degrees.

Its size — 10 times bigger than Jupiter — and its proximity to its star make it likely to die, Hellier said.

Think of how the distant moon pulls Earth’s oceans to form twice-daily tides. The effect the odd planet has on its star is thousands of times stronger, Hellier said. The star’s tidal bulge of plasma may extend hundreds of miles, he said.

Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen directly by a telescope.

Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth.

So far astronomers have found more than 370 planets outside the solar system. This one is “yet another weird one in the exoplanet menagerie,” said planet specialist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

It’s so unusual to find a suicidal planet that University of Maryland astronomer Douglas Hamilton questioned whether there was another explanation. While it is likely that this is a suicidal planet, Hamilton said it is also possible that some basic physics calculations that all astronomers rely on could be dead wrong.

The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems to be further in a death spiral, he said.

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Doesn’t WASP-18b have some brother or sister planet who could speak to him (her) and do some kind of intervention? Call a planetary therapist or something, tell him (her) life is alright and worth living.

So, WASP -18b is in our galactic neighbourhood. Sounds like its a good time to borrow some resources from our neighbour with the death wish. We could probably use some ozone, like a layer or two, and perhaps a few renewable resources, or even some non-renewable stuff like gas and oil. Maybe WASP-18b would be okay about hanging onto some of our stuff too, like garbage, plastic, nuclear waste, and WMD. (We should probably send a few racists along, you know, just to keep the stuff safe)

325 x 5.8 Trillion miles = 1,885,000,000,000,000 miles away. This is how small our galactic neighbourhood has become. It’s getting so crowded. The dysfunctional planets are taking over the place and wrecking the whole area. I should try move to another galactic neighbourhood. One that is safer and is more caring about its fellow planet.

And who names their planet WASP -18b anyways? No wonder this planet is all messed up. Probably lacking in self-esteem, hearing about how great WASP -18 is, so he (she) said “screw it I’m going to fly right into WASP-18 and end it all. That’ll show them.”

Astonomers must be deadly bored some days or perhaps they are feeling totally ignored. This story sounds like a cry for attention, if you ask me.

Would you pledge your soul as loan collateral?

 

RIGA (Reuters) – Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficult economic times? In Latvia, where the crisis has raged more than in the rest of the European Union, you can.

Such a deal is being offered by the Kontora loan company, whose public face is Viktor Mirosiichenko, 34.

Clients have to sign a contract, with the words “Agreement” in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, “that is, my immortal soul.”

Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.

“If they don’t give it back, what can you do? They won’t have a soul, that’s all,” he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.

Wearing sunglasses, a black suit and a white shirt with the words “Kontora” (office) emblazoned on it, he reaches into his pocket and lays out a sheaf of notes on the table to show that the business is serious and not a joke.

Latvia has been the EU nation worst hit by economic crisis.

Unemployment is soaring and banks have sharply reduced their lending, meaning that small companies offering easy loans in small amounts have become more popular.

Mirosiichenko said his company was basically trusting people to repay the small amounts they borrowed, which has so far been up to 250 lats ($500) for between 1 and 90 days at a hefty interest rate.

He said about 200 people had taken out loans over the two months the business was in operation.

(Reporting by Patrick Lannin; Editing by Steve Addison)

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Now this sounds like a real winning business proposition. You only have to give your first name, but what if you don’t give your real name. You don’t have to show any documents, so how will they know. Thus, I go in get my 500.00 tell them my name is Jack, no collector is going to come after me which is good, and now Jack’s soul is on the line. But Jack doesn’t really have a soul, because he doesn’t exist, so the company has no collateral to hold and no way to collect on either, the 500, or the bogus soul.

Now my soul is semi-safe, since I have not signed away my soul on the agreement. Maybe, you can say I didn’t have one in the first place, because I’m a liar, but I have 500.00 extra dollars. Perhaps I can repent and keep both.

I bet the song “Sixteen Tons” is huge hit right now in Latvia

Israel’s richest woman gets messages, has visions

By Tova Cohen and Steven Scheer

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Shari Arison, Israel’s richest woman and the controlling shareholder of the country’s second-largest bank, said on Sunday she has visions and receives messages “from above,” but they do not influence the management of her companies.

Arison set off an uproar in Israel after she revealed that information in an interview with Channel Two broadcast late on Saturday.

“I get a picture, I can feel it. If it’s fire, I feel like I’m burning. If people are dying I feel pain,” she confirmed in an interview with Reuters.

The Israeli-American Arison along with her brother inherited billions of dollars from her late father Ted Arison, who founded Carnival Corp, the world’s biggest cruise ship operator.

She is the controlling shareholder in Bank Hapoalim and controls Housing and Construction, Israel’s biggest construction company.

She said these visions are meant to help lead the world elsewhere. To this end, she is releasing her first book this week, entitled “Birth – When the Spiritual and the Material Come Together,” which details her journey both spiritually and in business.

She stressed that her visions do not interfere with the running of Hapoalim, in which she has no active role.

“The bank is managed very professionally, there’s a chairman and a board and everything is done according to law. It’s not my visions that run the bank, that’s ridiculous … there’s nothing to be worried about,” she said.

Shares of Hapoalim, Israel’s second-largest bank, rose 1.6 percent on Sunday.

“When I talk about a vision in business I am talking about you can have a profit, you should be professional but you can give added value,” Arison said.

The central bank declined to comment on Arison’s remarks and said she has not been contacted by them since the interview was aired.

Arison said the messages do influence her personal decisions regarding her assets.

In the book she tells how she was on the verge of selling Housing and Construction when she received a message not to sell “because with this company I could a make a difference with sustainable building,” she said.

Arison said she would not consider at this point selling her stake in Hapoalim or any of her other assets and is looking to invest in ventures in the fields of clean air and clean energy. She already has set up a company to invest in clean water projects.

She begins the book with her premise that the world is “collapsing” because of broad-based greed. The emphasis of the book is that every individual has to take responsibility for making the world a better place.

“I am aware of fact that in Israel there’s a lot of cynicism, a lot of opposition … I was very much aware that coming out with this book and my visions would create the same thing, cynicism and objection, until people understand.”

Arison, who is also known in Israel for her philanthropy, said two years ago she got a message that there would be an economic crisis and people would go crazy.

But after years of seeing catastrophes she now believes the world is moving toward a better future.

“For the past year I’ve been seeing peace and happiness,” she said. “I don’t know when that will happen. I know I have a role to tell people … Everyone has to make it happen.”

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Kind of sounds like she has the “force”. Maybe she’s a Jedi of some sort. Of course, George Lucas would never allow that and would immediately use his knowledge of the dark side to stop her.

It’s good to hear that she sees peace and happiness ahead. Probably doesn’t hurt to have billions of dollars already. I’m sure that makes life somewhat easier, more peaceful, and happier.

Perhaps it is billions of dollars that helps you see visions and stuff. Maybe, the more money you have, the more insight you get about the future. I think I should develop some sort of religion or belief, based on the idea of more money = more spiritual insight. Seems to work for televangelists. Does anybody want to invest a couple of billion dollars into me and I’ll see what kind of visions I can come up with. Prosperity for one, peace and happiness for all.

Mormons Motivate Healthy Lifestyle

From the Files of Peculiar Evangelism

So, there I was on my run. For those of you that don’t know, I like to run as a form of exercise. I run on my days off, and I will usually run 2 or 3 miles depending on how I am feeling, but I always run at least 2 miles. So there I was, at mile two of my run, and mile two of my racetrack just happens to go right by the big Mormon church, that is near my apartment.

Some days, I will stop at the mile two marker and on other days, I will continue on up to 2.5 or 3 mile marker. On this day, I was motivated to keep going on past the Mormon church. Because as I was running by the Mormon church, and I was posting up a good time also, I noticed to the left hand side of me a young elder dressed in a suit sprinting down the grassy embankment that is beside the Mormon church. The suited elder runs up to me and begins running beside me. I say to him “I don’t have time, I’m running”.  He replies in true evangelistic fashion, “Can I give you this card?” On one side of this postcard looking handout is a picture of what I suspect is supposed to be Jesus and on the other is an offer for a free DVD to learn about the LDS. I say, “okay” and I take the card and I keep running.

This is when the motivation kicked in and I felt a mild surge of energy or drive to carry on. Sometimes, I will stop my run around the corner from the church and this works out to be about 20 minutes of running. However, if I am a feeling strong I will keep going. On this day, I feel a surge of Speedy Gonzales/RoadRunner strength, due in part to the fact that down the street are two more suited up young elders. I didn’t want to talk to that team of mormons either, so I kept running past them, and I hung on to the card. I keep the card just in case, I needed to say I’ve already got one. I even blew past my 2.5 mile mark and kept going to the 3 mile mark, mostly because it is a good mile away from the mormon church. If they want to mormonize me then they are going to have to catch me and a young man in a suit is no match for a motivated long distance runner.

So, the mormons inspired me to work out a little bit harder and I say good on them for that.

What I have learned

-  Mormons are bold.

 - Mormons are completely robotic and clueless. They are like the Terminator and they will stop at nothing. They can’t be reasoned with, or bargained with, they can’t be bought, or bribed, they just keep coming, and they won’t quit. A mormon dressed in a suit, will sprint up to a guy running on the street, just to start a conversation or give him some propaganda . Can’t they see that I am in the midst of a run/workout  and think to themself “that guy is running, maybe we should let him be and wait for another opportunity?” Noooo, they can’t. All they see is their target and like the Terminator robot they move in for the shot. Mindless robots who don’t really care, just get that mormon message out to anything that moves.

- I think they have a evangelism quota that they have to meet. I may ask one of them someday, but then that would mean having to listen to the mormon propoganda speech. The speech is a real yawnfest and not inspiring at all. I have heard it before on another occasion, when I was finishing a run and I was puffing hard and sweating, so I let them talk.

- At 12:00 noon beside the Mormon church on Sangster Blvd, don’t go walking slow, the mormons on the loose. Unless you want to hear the speech, from a suited up young elder, about the prophet and get some free DVD’s about LDS and Jesus.

Pope creates 5 saints including Portuguese warrior

 By Stephen Brown and Andrei Khalip

VATICAN CITY/LISBON (Reuters) – Pope Benedict created five new saints on Sunday, including Portugal’s national hero Nuno Alvares Pereira, a medieval warrior-friar credited with securing Portugal’s independence from Castile. The pope told pilgrims at the canonization in the Vatican that the 14th-century nobleman had shown that “in any situation, even of a military and warlike nature, it is possible to act and live out the values and principles of Christian life.”

His canonization has been the subject of much excitement among Roman Catholics in Portugal, with exhibitions about his life drawing large crowds, biographies published and the launch of a commemorative postage stamp carrying his portrait. The Portuguese Bishops’ Conference drew comparisons between the 1383-1385 crisis of succession in Portugal and the current global economic crisis “stemming from a vacuum of moral values,” citing the saint’s example of sobriety and sharing of wealth. “We want this to be an anti-crisis celebration. We want the canonization to be a sign of hope,” friar Francisco Rodrigues, who led the canonization effort, said earlier this week.

Born in 1360 and appointed Constable of the Kingdom at just 24, his 6,500 Portuguese troops defeated over 30,000 Castilians in the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385 to quash Castilian claims on Portuguese lands, bringing about two centuries of peace. The richest man in Portugal, Alvares Pereira gave up all his titles and wealth to become a friar in the Carmo Convent he had built in Lisbon, spending his last years in prayer and penitence under the name Friar Nuno of St Mary.

Long venerated in Portugal and its former colonies, there were attempts to canonize him at least as long ago as the 15th century and he was beatified in 1918. But it took a miracle attributed to him in 2000 — believers say he intervened to cure a woman’s eye burned by boiling oil — to culminate the process. The other saints created included early 14th-century Sienese aristocrat Bernardo Tolomei, who died along with 82 monks of his order while helping victims of the Great Plague of 1348.

Three 19th-century Italians — the priest Arcangelo Tadini and two women, Geltrude Comensoli and Caterina Volpicelli, who took vows of chastity and founded congregations of nuns — were canonized for helping the poor and their dedication to prayer

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Now, I don’t want to make fun of Portugal’s freedom from Castile, but there are some things that I find funny in this story.

Without getting into the whole Pope “creating” saints thing, because that is just a theological debate that serves no purpose in this forum and would go nowhere. But the warrior/saint thing seems ironic.  I wonder when other warriors are going to be “sainted” and who they will be. Maybe Swan, Ajax, and Cochise from “The Warriors” could be considered. It was pretty miraculous how those guys fought there way back home to Coney Island, but the Baseball Furies were really no match. 

And it only took them 620 years to find a miracle that he may or may not have done, so they could finally saint him. Haven’t the catholics heard of Wikipedia or the National Enquirer. They could have made up a miracle story long ago instead of making this dead guy wait for so long.

I wonder what they will make him the patron saint of? Probably some silly thing like Patron Saint of Wikipedia Entries or Blog Posts. Just invoke his name and your blog posts or comments are that much more enlightening, unlike this one.