Sad Puppies Bite Back

This puppy is ready for WAR

This is one of those fever dream moments. You know, that bit where you don't know where the ideas came from, or what you were thinking, or even why it happened in your head at all? It's sort of like how I wrote It Was Only on Stun! (if that doesn't explain the book, nothing does).

In his books, Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy wrote that anyone not on the left tended to adopt insults as a battle cry.  I think he was referring to something Barry Goldwater did.

Anyway, that tradition really has continued, with politicians adopting nicknames that is basically a reductio ad absurdum of every insult ever thrown at them.

That's why, if you look down the Sad Puppy backers, you have "Sarah Hoyt, Evil Yet Beautiful Space Princess" (Yes, as a proper name), Larry Correia has adopted the moniker as the International Lord of Hate.  Brad Torgersen .... anyway, we'll get there in a moment.

To be honest, I have no idea how many were self-named, and how many just sort of ... happened (and how many originated with John C. Wright having fun with it all).  I'm not that close with them. I'm "friends" with Brad and Larry on Facebook, and we all know what that's worth.  Sarah Hoyt's nickname is especially hilarious since she's about as Evil as, well, a puppy. A real puppy, not a sad puppy... oh screw you, you know what I mean.  She's downright pleasant and nice, and will even talk to losers like me.  I also know Cedar Sanderson ... though I don't know if we're friends friends, or acquaintance-friends. Sarah and Cedar talk to me. So you now know the extent of our relationship.

Anyway, back in January, I tripped over a funny piece by Vox Day -- presumably before Vox declared "Burn this bitch down!" about the Hugos -- which basically boiled down to "The monthly staff meeting of the Evil League of Evil" (in the Lair of the Puppies).

For some reason, ever since I heard about the death threats on the Puppies, and I wondered when Larry Correia or Brad would be SWATted, all I could think of was, well, what would happen?

For those people who are not familiar with the concept of SWATting, it's the practice where someone calls 911, insisting that the target has a gun, is violent and actively threatening to shoot people, in the hopes that the SWAT team knocks down someone's door and possibly gets them killed. Fun, huh? This has been a tactic that's come up in the last year. I was going to call this SWATing Sad Puppies, but I can't see that title going over well.

But just imagine....

On The Pope and the current "Scandal"

Some Common Sense on the Catholic Church in the News.


Recently, there have been some accusations of a coverup by Pope Benedict, back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The New York Times has posted a little story. As Maureen Dowd has accused, "Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler' when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys."

Fr. Murphy, hereby known as "Scumbag Priest A", served from 1950-1974 as a priest at a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. There had been accusations of abuse, but no evidence--DNA had not existed before the late 80s. Without more than “he said/he said” to go on, he was later forced into "temporary sick leave." Superiors couldn't convict him, but they could isolate him.

Fast forward 22 years. In 1996, The Archbishop of Milwaukee now has victims asking him to take action. A letter is sent to Cardinal Ratzinger. There was no reply, and no one can tell if the letter ever made it to him. Ratzinger's deputy approved charges against Scumbag Priest A, waving its own internal statute of limitations on pressing cases against priests, despite the fact that the limitations in the state of Wisconsin had well since passed

In June, 1998, Scumbag Priest A wrote to Ratzinger, citing the fact that he had suffered strokes and asking to live out his days as a priest. Ratzinger's deputy suggested letting Scumbag Priest A accept banishment, a step short of full defrocking, if he admitted guilt and expressed remorse. The Wisconsin bishop who had taken the case refused.

In August 1998, two weeks before Scumbag Priest A's impending death, the archbishop of Milwaukee reported to Rome that he had suspended the trial and would try to get letters of apology from Scumbag Priest A. The suspension order was never conveyed to the priest that headed the trial panel. He says he would have fought such a command and that Scumbag Priest A died while charges were still pending.

The theory: somewhere, in there, is a coverup, and that Ratzinger is at that heart of it all.

Now, given that I live in the United States in America, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. Unless you're a Catholic priest. You're accused, therefore, you're cooked.

In this case, I don't refer to the pederast. I assume that Scumbag Priest A is guilty, hang him high, skin him alive, in public, and I can devise some creative things with a spoon if I put my mind to it.

I'm referring to Cardinal Ratzinger.