Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel

It was described as a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions”, a “masonic plot” and a “pot pourri of lies”. Now a nervous Vatican is braced for the sequel to The Da Vinci Code and the return of its nemesis, Dan Brown.

Angels & Demonsis the latest Brown thriller to be turned into a film, and already the Catholic Church is agonising over how best to respond: to urge the faithful to boycott the film, or to ignore it? The Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church condemned The Da Vinci Codein its book and film version, but some church officials argued that the campaign against it merely boosted the public’s curiosity by giving it the “oxygen of publicity”.

The plot ofAngels & Demonshas all the ingredients to worry the cardinals: a sinister elite known as the Illuminati wants to destroy the Vatican using an antimatter bomb made with material stolen from the physics experiment at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.

The film is to be released in Italy on May 13 and in Britain a day later, as Pope Benedict XVI finishes his tour of the Holy Land. A strong reaction is more likely because the antiDa Vinci campaign was led by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Archbishop of Genoa and now the Vatican’s Secretary of State – and as such the Pope’s right-hand man. Gianni Gennari, a leading theologian and a columnist for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, called on Catholics to boycott Angels & Demons, accusing the film-makers of “exploiting the Church to swell takings at the box office”. He said the film was part of a plot to undermine the credibility of the Church.

Trust me on this: You don't know the first thing about me. I don't hate anybody. Including Libertarians. I just think the lot of you are the most dangerous thing in the world: A fool with a little bit of knoledge. You people never think things through. Your simple political philosophy appeals to those who have been unwilling to pay attention. There's a reason why so many libertarians are former liberals. You've grasped the fact that libaralism is destined to fail, but you are not willing to let go of you utopian ideals. All of that would be fine, except for the fact that libertarians know that they are a fringe group. Your voice goes relatively unheard on its own, so you hang aroundRepublicans, hoping to infect the politics of the right with your nonsense. Let me say this for you loud and clear: THIS IS NOT A REPUBLICAN WEB FORUM. This is a CONSERVATIVE web forum. We model our political philosophy here after the course set by Ronald Reagan when he was president. We don't need to make arguments to support Reagan's view, because he was far more eloquent in stating them himself. There can only be one view as to what Reagan's policy was concerning legalized drugs, because the history books tell us he was 100% against them and he increased federal regulations and law enforcements. Therefore, all of the so-called "points" that you are making are demonstably false. They will never be otherwise. It is your right to support changes in our nation's policy towards illegal drugs. It is even your right to make it your primary political purpose in life. But you can't come to a Conservative web page and make the case that your view is actually the conservative one without contradicting the Reagan Presidency.

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel, presidio9 wrote a bunch of non-sense and wasted more bandwidth:

[snip]

I've been lurking FR way before you EVER EVER signed up ... I've been lurking FR way before you ever heard of FR ... I recall FR has been such a successful forum because of plenty of support from Conservatives, Republicans and Conservative minded independents.

You do not speak for anyone on FR other than yourself ...

Everybody on FR does not have your exact political views.

I understand this is a place to spout off, and so you pick the easiest target possible: people who do not fit YOUR definition of conservatism ...

BTW, RR was not the founder of conservatism. RR was president 20+ years ago ... Are you stuck in the 80's?

I just think the lot of you are the most dangerous thing in the world:

I think I have heard just about enough from you ...

A fool with a little bit of knoledge.

You gotta be kidding me ... I have no idea what "knoledge" is ... And since you have now resorted to name calling, it's obvious to me and anyone else reading FR you have LOST this debate.

And since you just called me a "fool" ...

Leave me alone, or go pound sand, or go do both. I'm not debating you anymore when its obvious you have no valid arguments, you have no facts, or counter points ...

“Bill”,

I decided not to bother cutting and pasting your post to me, because you must know that very few people will be reading this thread, as we are pretty much the only two people posting. You and I started talking, because you posted an asinine and factually incorrect statement in post 50, which I didn't bother addressing. No, you didn't post to me. You posted to nobody, like a coward, and you posted to a thread that I started. I took exception to you tagline, which indicated that Ronald Reagan, the father of the so-call “War On Drugs” was an enemy of the constitution.

Now, I don't pretend to speak for everyone here on FR, but I actually have had this screen name for 10 years. The one consistency that I have found among members here is a reverence for President Reagan. Most, no, virtually all of us model our own personal conservative philosophies after that great man. I'm not a particularly big fan of Jim Robinson, but I have no doubt that he would include himself in that group. So, no, on this website you certainly don't need to have the exact same political views as me. But, if you differ from Ronald Reagan, you are probably wrong. And if you are a libertarian, which Ronald Reagan was not, you are most certainly wrong more often than you right on subjects like these. This is a free country. Go find a libertarian website, and I'm sure there will be people that that agree with you all the time. The rest of us come here to get away from unrealistic political viewpoints like legalizing drugs, which most of us find moronic. I don't know a nicer way to say this than 99% of the people on FR disagree with you, but most are too polite to say anything. Your 1% knows it is outnumbered, so you are very vocal. But you are still just as wrong.

A couple more things: You have been on FR for a year. You have no way for proving that you ever lurked here, so that point is irrelevant. If you must know, I have been with FR (with a screen name) since the second month that it was in existence. But I had accounts banned several times in the early days. I was younger then. But I have had this one since 2000, so this is the one that counts. You have been here less than a year, an it shows. Deal with it. Pointing out people's spelling errors in an argument just makes you look desperate. So does arbitrarily telling your opponent “You have LOST the debate. Leave me alone.” You would have learned that by now, if you had been here for more than a year. The mere fact that you would post something like that indicates that you have run out of answers (because it's killing you that I am right about Ronald Reagan and libertarianism), and are now grasping at any straw that might help you save face.

And finally, you don't get to tell me to leave you alone on my thread, which you posted to. I answered. Every time you answer back I get to keep reminding you that, yes, you are in fact a fool. You have yet to make a logical argument (you brain on drugs, possibly?), and you don't know when to call it a day and keep your mouth shut. Not that it matters to me one way or another. Anybody interested in whether or not my posts have contained “vaild points” is more than welcome to re-read through this thread. My post are full of them. The fact that you don't like what they have to say doesn't make them any less valid.

As a matter of fact, I triple dog dare you to break your word and continue on with this “Legalizing Drugs Is A Conservative Principle” nonsense. To be honest, I'd lose my faith in the stupidity and hardheadedness of libertarians if you didn't.

You posted to nobody, like a coward,

Personal Attack. Thats enough for me again, THIS is not your thread(you may have started it, BUT it is not yours), this is not your site, you do NOT speak for anyone else on FR. Are you not capable of demonstrating common sense? How hard is that to understand?

Now, I don't pretend to speak for everyone here on FR,

Yes you do. Case in point, you just said: "Most, no, virtually all of us "

I'm not a particularly big fan of Jim Robinson,

What on earth are you talking about? He has nothing to do with this thread or topic ... and it is HIS forum that we all use ...

Go find a libertarian website,

I'm not a registered libertarian ...

No wonder your against legalizing drugs ... it looks like your getting your crack just fine as is ...

Pointing out people's spelling errors in an argument just makes you look desperate.

It makes you look like an uneducated poster who can NOT spell. If you've had a computer for years like you say, how hard is it to hit the spell check. Obviously pretty hard ...

But I had accounts banned several times in the early days.

What a shocker ... Couldn't have been for personal attacks (name calling) ... no way ... /s

Now leave me alone, the sand needs your attention once more ...

Thanks for yet another post without a rational thought or compelling argument. I guess we can now add the fact that you don’t understand the concept of a personal attack to you’re other cognitive difficulties.

Others include:
Your repeated and unfufulled threats to abandon a discussion that you are losing.

Your illogical use of cut and paste to the extent that I’m pretty sure you didn’t really know what you disagreed with, or what point you were trying to make.

Your confusion with what the word libertarian really means. The only valid argument for legalized drugs is the liberarian one. If you are for them, and you deny that you are a libertarian, then I guess you’re just a drug addict, who doesn’t care what the effect would be on society, right?

You advocate for legalized drugs, without being familiar with the effects of those drugs. Case and point, crack cocaine would have the effect of making me feel euphoric energetice or confidfent, not confused about the definition of term libertarian. For something like that, you’d have to be smoking marijuana or heroin.

You’re also confused about the significance of mispelling. Obviously poor spelling is to be avoid, but it doesn’t make a point any less valid. Poor spelling by me does nothing for stupidity from you.

Finally, you continue to use any information about myself that I have given you to make idiotic assumptions. Just as you haven’t come close to figuring out why I don’t drink or use drugs, you also have no idea why I have have had accounts banned in the passed. It wasn’t for personal attacks. Again, I haven’t really attacked you on this thread, I have just called them like I see them. You are an admitted drug user in the middle to advanced stages of self-inflicted brain damage, therefore, it is almost impossible for you to post here without saying somthing stupid. That’s a fact, not a “personal attack.” You are also a libertarian who denies following his own political philosophy. That makes you again deficient, but also pusillanimous. You don’t even have the balls to stand up for what you believe in, I guess. There are observations, not personal attacks.

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel, presidio9 wrote more crap and wasted even more bandwidth:

[snip]

You are definitely determined to post all sorts of garbage to "your" thread ...

Obviously poor spelling is to be avoid,

Poor grammar, poor spelling, presidio9 doesn't care. It's the CONTENT that matters.

The only valid argument for legalized drugs is the liberarian one.

Spelling does not matter ... neither does grammar, it is the CONTENT that matters.

There are observations, not personal attacks.

Again, spelling and grammar do not matter.

I'm learning a lot about you from your posts. I have learned that perfect Conservatives such as yourself have a few principals that they follow:

Perfect Conservatives support the War on Drugs; the fact that the WOD is unconstitutional is second to the fact that it is for our children's future.

Perfect Conservatives do not need to practice correct spelling and grammar; all that matters is the content of the message.

On this thead “08bil98z24” has now threated to leave in three seperate posts, and yet here you are again. To quote the old song: “How can I miss you if you never go away?”
Boy, if you keep threatening to leave, eventually you have to follow through on that threat. Otherwise, you just end up looking like an ass. I’m suprised nobody’s told you that before.

On the other hand, if you feel the need to keep bumping my thread and letting people in on the extent of your stupity, be my guest. All of the people posting now are ignoring you and agreeing with my original point (which has nothing to do with you or drugs or whatever pathetic drug habits you have). So I figure its win-win for me. That’s why people post thread here, you know: to make the same point to a lot of people. You partially disagreed with that point in your first post, because you had no clue what you were talking about. I’ve come to expect these types of struggles with logic from libertarians. Especially ones like yourself who obviously haven’t given the concept much thought further than “gee, wouldn’t it be great if pot were legal?”

I agree with your point that spelling and grammer are fairly irrelevant. It is the content that matters. Thanks for sharing. If you truely believe that, why do you keeping looking for spelling errors in my posts? If I gave a rat’s ass about a drug addict, don’t you think I could take the time to hit spell check? On way of looking at it is that those errors have a lot more to say about you than they do about me. But keep looking if you think it helps you argument. It doesn’t. And drugs will be just as illegal when you’re finished.

Finally we get to you’re idea that you’ve so much about me from my post. To behonest, I don’t remember that I was ever hiding anything. Many people on FR know me quite well. I’ve had diner with several of them. Breakfast with a few others. One thing I don’t consider myself to be is a “prefect conservative.” That’s another place where I guess you and I differ. For instance, I don’t accept the party line on immigration. I think illegal immigration is mostly a product of our welfare state. Get rid of it, and there will be far fewer jobs that Americans are unwilling to do.

Also I and most Conservatives I know have no interest in things that are “for the children” as you say. I don’t have kids (see, there’s another thing you know about me), and I don’t know a lot of kids who do drugs. But there I go again worrying about why drugs are illegal. The point is they are. You want to change that, so its up to you to say why. And its not enough to vaguely claim “it’s unconstitutional.” The Supreme Court doesn’t agree with you.

Oh, I almost forgot: When you made those points about what “perfect conservatives” want or don’t want, were you even talking about me, or were you just manufacturing an ideal? Oh wait, there’s that CONTENT thing...

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel, presidio9 wrote something ... but I did not bother to waste my time reading it:

Why write a book? Your silly.

I'm not reading what you write anymore at this point, it appears unfortunately the severe case of diarrhea of the brain you have acquired has really started to affect the CONTENT your posts.

We got rid of Arlene Specter today, now only if we could get rid of YOU, (or you could just come back to reality instead of the fantasy world you are currently living in) the Republican party would be on it's way back to the top.

The War on Drugs is unconstitutional. Limiting one's freedom for the benefit of our children is something Liberals do.

Legalizing drugs is not going to lead to everyone being a drug addict.

Prisons are over crowded with individuals whose only crime was possession. Alcoholics do not go to jail for alcohol, why should a drug addict go to jail for drugs.

Scheduling laws are unconstitutional as they ban certain substances for use by everyone no matter what the reason.

The War on Drugs is a complete disaster, yet knuckle heads like YOU (who are perfect conservatives) think you are saving all of man kind. What is even more pathetic is that so called conservatives such as yourself recycle liberal anti-gun talking points to make an anti-legalization/anti-drug message.

Prohibition did not work. WOD does not work. The difference? Prohibition was constitutional.

Why not put the argument up for a vote? Misguided individuals such as yourself would not allow it ... Fear of popular opinion for legalization is the determining factor.

Do not respond to me again. I will NOT allow you to have the last post/last word. This may be YOUR thread but I'M ending it. Ha.

As for the content of your posts, It's never to late to go back to school. Sentence structure, spelling and grammar do matter in society.

Spell check? Whats that? Perfect Conservatives don't need to spell correctly.

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