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Sometimes I see a headline that just stops me in my tracks. This morning, I saw this headline: “O’Reilly: Like Iran, ‘the reason North Korea is causing trouble is that it wants to influence the November Election’“!

What?! Huh?!

In my world travels I have learned this: from the perspective of those outside the United States, our two parties are not substantially different. What we call ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ is all right wing conservative in other countries. We’re quibbling about what shade of turquoise it is, really.

So, it stands to reason from that perspective, then, that they could care less who the hell the US President is; it’s all the same to them. We’re still a bunch of pushy, arrogant, self-righteous, Christian-bible-thumping, science-fearing idiots looking for an excuse to go to war and take your oil.

How self-centered must you be to actually think that the rest of the world, or anybody in the world outside the US, is following our political elections that closely; or better yet, actively seeking to influence them for personal gain? How seriously have your critical thinking skills lapsed to conclude that a complete replacement of Republicans with Democrats, as unlikely as that is, will somehow benefit North Korea in a meaningful way? Hello?!

Even if the US went totally soft on North Korea, it has little bearing on how the UN will handle it; or, moreover, how China will or Russia will. We are but one country.

That’s right, the Oklahoma legistlature – the last bastion of the morally upright – has untwisted its knickers enough to allow legal tattooing. Tattooing was legal in all 49 other states, and will finally be legal in Oklahoma this November, reversing a law that’s been on the books since 1963! However, it’s still illegal to hunt whales or take a bite out of someone else’s hamburger. Baby steps….

I ran across this article this morning, and felt compelled to bring it up. I find it truly stunning, the lengths the Bush administration seem to go to, to silence information like this. I’ve said it before: this is not a problem we can ignore and hope it goes away. Whether you believe it’s happening or not, the stakes are high enough to at least let people know and look into it. It sickens me to think how irrational that group, as a whole, appears to be if they are censoring critical information of this nature to support a political ideology.

Viterbo, Italy, is the venue where Rev. Enrico Righi is being sued by atheist Luigi Cascioli, for allegedly deceiving people into thinking Jesus was an actual historical figure.

“This complaint does not wish to contest the freedom of Christians to profess their faith, sanctioned by [article] 19 of the Italian Constitution,” says Cascioli, “but wishes to denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by availing itself of its prestige in order to inculcate – as if being real and historical – facts that are really just inventions.”

Attorneys for Righi and Cascioli presented their arguments before Judge Gaetano Mautone in a closed hearing.
“The point is not to establish whether Jesus existed or not, but if there is a question of possible fraud,” said Cascioli’s attorney, Mauro Fonzo, according to the Associated Press.

Although Cascioli and his attorney know their case has little chance of success in the home of the Roman Catholic Church, their strategy is to go through the necessary legal steps that will enable them, ultimately, to bring their case before the European Court of Human Rights. There, says Fonzo, he will accuse the church of “religious racism,” said the report.

Cascioli, the author of “The Fable of Christ,” claims his childhood friend violated local laws against deception when he stated in a 2002 parish gazette “that the historic figure of Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary (two totally imaginary characters and therefore historically non existing [claims Cascioli]); of having the same Jesus been born in the village of Bethlehem and of having grown up in Nazareth.”

Specifically, Cascioli says Righi has broken two Italian laws: the “abuse of popular belief” – which amounts to intentionally deceiving someone – and “impersonation” – meaning one gains by giving a false name to someone.

On his website, Cascioli alleges the person known as Jesus is “for the most part based on the figure of John of Gamala, son of Judas, downright descendant of the Asmoneian stock.”

Rev. Righi says the existence of Jesus is “unmistakable” due to a wealth of both pagan and Christian evidence pointing to his reality.

“Cascioli maintains that Christ never existed. If he doesn’t see the sun at midday, he can’t denounce me just because I do. He should denounce all believers!” Righi told the London Times recently.

Among his examples are the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, thought by scholars to be the most important non-Christian source on the issue. One of his passages of “Jewish Antiquities,” a work completed in A.D. 93, mentions the execution in A.D. 62 of “the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, James by name.”

Cascioli declares he is not intent on having the matter be decided by a court of law, saying, “I wrote to [Righi] an open letter, stating that I would withdraw the lawsuit if he were capable of supplying proof, just one proof, of the historical existence of Jesus.”