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National Secular Society ★ Written by Keith Porteous Wood.

Despite achieving constitutional separation from the Catholic Church after much 
bloodshed, the French state is still subservient to the Church when it comes to child abuse


The 120th anniversary of France's landmark law codifying the separation of Church and state was commemorated last month. The 1905 law's ideological origin was of course the Revolution of 1789, which sought to end, through the establishment of a republic, the corruption and excessive power of the monarchs, the aristocracy and the Catholic Church.

However, France wasn't the first jurisdiction to make religious freedom a right and forbid state support for religion – the US state of Virginia was. There, the Anglican Church was established just as it was, and still is, in England. Virginia's stance formed the template for the first amendment to the US Constitution in 1789, thanks to visionaries James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the latter of whom devoted his life to replicating these concepts in other countries, starting with France.

Now, nearly 250 years later, let's examine what has been achieved, and what still needs to be done.

In 1789 after much bloodshed, French citizens managed to form a unicameral National Assembly  . . . 

Continue @ NSS.

France’s Rocky Road To The Separation Of Church And State

Event 📢 Public meeting to discuss climate change.

Venue: Marine Hotel, Sutton.

Date: 4-February-2026

Time: 19.30
 


Sutton Public Meeting 🌞 Climate Change

Friendly Atheist ★ Dr. Kirk Milhoan is the head of the Republican-backed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and he's completely out of his depth.

In a move that will ultimately harm ignorant Americans, the head of the Republican-backed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said this week that vaccines that fight polio and measles ought to be optional, flying in the face of all documented evidence.

The chair of that panel, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said the right to refuse vaccines was more important than a mandate to protect public health.

In the case of an infectious disease, a personal choice to decline a vaccine may also affect others, including infants who are too young to be vaccinated or people who are immunocompromised. But a person’s right to reject a vaccine supersedes those risks, Dr. Milhoan said.

“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” he said. “Without consent it is medical battery.”

To make sense of the decision, it helps to know more about Milhoan and why he’s on this panel at all. He’s an evangelical Christian pastor with a long history of promoting vaccine misinformation, which is why he was appointed to this vaccine advisory panel by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

Continue @ Friendly Atheist.

Pastor Who Rejects “Established Science” Decided Polio & Measles Vaccines Should Be Optional

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Eight

 

Pastords @ 29

 

A Morning Thought @ 3045

Michael Phillips ✍ I bumped into someone who jogged an odd detail loose. 

Let’s call him a Truth Seeker—one of many, I dare to hope. He mentioned that, once upon a time, the agent in the Kenova report—the one who officially doesn’t exist but whom every dog on the street seems to know—lived in a quaint little community in County Down. Another voice chimed in that he’s lived in more houses than you or I have had Sunday roasts. That rang true. I don’t recall many Sunday roasts growing up; there were too many marauding mouths to feed in our house for a single roast to survive beyond the first sitting.

That detail triggered a memory: a meeting I once had with the agent-who-doesn’t-exist at a tourist spot beside a beautiful lake. He invited me up to feed the swans. It was a long way to go for swans. I went anyway, just for the craic, and never once questioned the location. The truth is, I was still in my Republican nappies, so the less said the better. I do remember briefly wondering whether it was reckless or brazenly bold—given the area was home to security forces and well-to-do Unionists. Ignorance is bliss, and I was clearly guilty of incuriosity. Looking back now, though, the idea that he had his own personal rat hole nearby makes perfect sense. He wasn’t reckless or bold at all. He was in his natural habitat.

That was then. Times, they are a-changin’. Perhaps I’m too curious now. Funnier still is that some people are paid to be curious—their careers are built on it—yet they’ve managed to ignore the most obvious and controversial issue staring them in the face, without so much as a twitch suggesting they might probe it.

Another Truth Seeker recently asked me about certain journalists, sending me rummaging through the recesses of my brain to see what I’d missed—again. Not long ago, articles were circulating online pointing out how certain northern journalists have ignored the agent-who-doesn’t-exist, despite documented links to him. Normally, it pays not to react to every online provocation. But this Truth Seeker might be onto something. For one, the journalists in question were close enough to the agent to adjust his hidden microphone. Two, their careers are long, respected, and well established. Three, their paths have crossed for decades.

So how is it possible they’ve never reported on one of the most explosive stories in the North? Their lack of professional curiosity deserves Olympic gold—especially given that some were tipped off years ago by a friendly source. They chase major crimes and political heavyweights, yet suddenly turn coy when confronted with a British agent who slipped through the Stakeknife saga. Voltaire warned: “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.” True to form, these journalists cherry-picked their truths. When the agent-who-doesn’t-exist appeared, they heard no evil, saw no evil, and published no evil.

And now, ironically, they’re becoming the story.

⏩Michael Phillips is a former republican prisoner.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Write No Evil

Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum ☭ Róisín McAleer hosts a discussion on the current situation in Iran between Members of Social Rights Ireland and the Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum.

What Is happening In Iran

UnHerd ⚫Written by Emily Jashinsky. Recommended by Christopher Owens.

He went from Democratic hope to chump

Tim Walz is a lot like a party balloon. He spent some time soaring, but it was always clear that the Minnesota governor would either slowly leak air or pop on a tree branch. A little more than a year after being launched into national politics as Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential nominee, Walz has landed back on the ground, dropping his gubernatorial re-election bid and watching his state go up in flames. The damage to his career may be irreparable.


A haphazard Kamala Harris campaign plucked Walz straight from cable news, where he was effectively defining the Trump-Vance ticket as “weird” throughout the mid-summer of 2024. Clips of Walz — a Midwestern Dad seemingly straight from central casting — were going viral on social media during the heyday of Couchgate: baseless allegations that JD Vance had once engaged in sexual activity with a couch. Indeed, just one day after Harris named him to the ticket, Walz referenced the meme about Vance’s supposed lust for living-room furniture.

“I can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz smirked. 

Continue @ UnHerd.

The Unravelling Of Tim Walz

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Seven

 

A Morning Thought @ 3044

Frankie Quinn with a poem from his expansive body of work. 

Songbird

Beneath bird’s wings she sleeps
Questioning Humanity
Head bowed, hunger ravaging her delicate body
The sunbird collects nectar 
For her sustenance
Protecting her from the Inhumane inhabitants planted on homeland.
♞♜♝
She sings in different dialects as the oppressed Artists paint the beauty in rebellion
Enemy can’t clip the wings of freedom
The lark rose from a dark H block cell
carried freedom’s voice to millions
The Tiny sunbird whispers truth in the ears of Palestine.
♞♜♝
As she opens her gentle hands
The sunbird flutters her wings 
Warbles the freedom song from the river to the sea
In death we are free. 
She curtsies, closes her eyes
Falls to her knees in the roots of an olive tree
Embraces it becoming one with her origins forever

⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.   

Songbird

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