Catholic Child Abuse – The Cloyne Report

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Back in 2009, the Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Nope not my grammar, that is what they called what was also known as The Murphy report) was published with the details of some truly horrifying child abuse. It was not the end-game and so they did not stop there because the last Irish government had agreed to extend the Murphy commission’s remit to include Cloyne, so further investigation proceeded. On Wednesday 13th July they finally issued their report.

To give this a contextual time line, the commission was asked to investigate the handling of sex abuse allegations in Cloyne by church and state authorities between 1 January 1996 – when the church’s first-published guidelines, its Framework Document, came into play – and 1 February 2009. In other words, this is restricted to a period of time that “starts” from the day they claimed to have cleaned up their act and does not consider any of the historical abuse prior to 1996.

First the link so that you can go read it yourself. Here is the full report. At 421 pages in length, it is not a quick read.

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The True evil of Islam Illustrated

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If I asked you, or any decent normal human, the question, “Is it OK to murder somebody who does not hold the same beliefs?”, I remain confident that the universal answer would be obvious. In fact, I’d be astonished if anybody would actually suggest it was a great idea …. well … prepare to be astonished, because Islam belief does indeed appear to consider it to be a viable response to valid criticism of utterly insane and delusional beliefs.

Here now is a video clip taken from an interview given by Shaykh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni on the Egyptian satellite television station al-Hikma on 7 July 2011. Now least you wonder, this is no fringe kook, he is a popular Islamic preacher known for spouting nonsense like this.

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#TAM9 – Saturday bytes

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And today’s TAM9 live feed can be found here … all done by a couple of folks who are far better at live blogging than I am, so go check it out. As for me, well, I’m back to my collection of tweets and quotes that I, for some bizarre reason, like to filter and collect … as always … enjoy …

Oh, and for all you Pharyngula folks, PZ has announced the meetup at  6pm, in the Garden Buffet tonight.

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#TAM9 – Friday Echo

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Tempting as it might be to live-blog, there are folks out there doing a far better job than I ever cold, so I’ll simply point you in their direction ..

  • Friendly Atheist has been live-blogging the sessions here … with some help from some friends, and also some cool pictures as well, plus a link to that Tyson vs Dawkins video.

Twitter has of course been in full swing, to tune in, you can tap the #TAM9 Twitter feed here. But if not bothered, then to help bring back the day, here are a few of the tweets that I liked … enjoy

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#tam9 – Thursday soundbites

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There is too much going on, and I’m also in the middle of it all, so I can’t create a generic 30,000 ft view. However, what I can do is attempt to capture a few sound bites that I’ve mined from twitter … enjoy …

  • Dr. Atlantis’ Bad Pun Of The Day: “…your Ogopogo shtick.” – Maria Myrback
  • Only a panel on evolution could wake me up – Jennifer McCreight

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Lowell Observatory

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I’ve had the deep privilege of spending last night at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ (Now, least you consider night to be an odd time to be out and about and wonder if they might be open at night … well think telescopes, stars etc … they tend not to do days, that big yellow thing in the sky tends to get in the way a bit).

The actual location is of course ideal, Flagstaff itself is over 7000 ft above sea level, and so perched about the city on Mars hill is the Observatory.  The site is a US National Historic Landmark, for this is the home of historical scientific discoveries. They have a 24-inch (0.61 m) Alvan Clark Telescope (pictured ) which is still in use today for public education. Now don’t misunderstand me, they still do real science, they currently operate four research telescopes at its Anderson Mesa dark sky site, located 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Flagstaff, including the 72-inch (1.8-meter) Perkins Telescope (in partnership with Boston University) and the 42-inch (1.1 m) John S. Hall Telescope. (But for visiting, you want the Flagstaff site).

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