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The Public Blogging of Pomosexuality, Homotextuality, Homophobiaphilia, and Drear Theory (aka Career Theory) [aka Gay4Pay]. We also read the Corner and OpJournal so the right buttock will be punished as well.
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(London) Actress and singer Grace Jones had to be escorted off a Eurostar train by police in Kent after allegedly attacking a train manager, it was revealed today.
James Taranto of the WSJ'sPopeinion Journal issued this papal bull yesterday (the comments of yours in Christ truly, i.e. the Black Pope, are interlarded. Yes, I inserted more fat into the schmaltz):
AIDS Illogic
Not everyone is praising the departed pope, Agence France-Presse reports:
*** QUOTE ***
AIDS campaigners sounded a jarring note over the papacy of John Paul II,describing his ban on condom use, abhorrence of homosexuality and conservatism on women's rights as bleak failures in the fight against HIV.
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Could someone please explain the logic here? The pope opposed homosexuality, which encourages the spread of AIDS, and he also opposed condoms, which help prevent the spread of AIDS. How can both these positions have been harmful to the fight against HIV?
Let us leave aside the Sturmer worthy statement that homosexuality "encourages the spread of AIDS". And let us grant Mr. Taranto's odd point that the Pope is only manifestly guilty on one of the two charges addressed here, harming the fight against AIDS by demonizing the use of condoms. So how can his divinely inspired abhorrence of homosexuality be charged against the memory of his beneficence, too? Well, the shame, fear and ignorance based sexual teachings and ethics of the Catholic Church have good and bad effects. On the plus side they provide great cover for the sexual depredations of the more, uh, worldly members of the Catholic clerical class. Nothing like ignorance fear and shame to make sure the boys do what you say but never tell what you did.
This blessing comes with a curse, though. It's not just altar boys who are kept stupid and afraid. Sure, the sub rosa rumba has its earthly delights, you can make out like a bandit if you're situated just right with, say, a job above reproach and some hocus pocus garments to seal the deal, but the rest of us are just bandits by definition, culturally and legally. Our lives don't matter much, the ways and means of our deaths even less. And least of all in those places where the Pope's teachings hold their greatest sway. Information, knowledge, open inquiry, and honesty are the enemies of epidemics. Fear, ignorance, shame and occult practices are their allies. QED.
Another problem for the AIDS activists is that if everyone followed the pope's teachings on sex--i.e., none of it outside marriage--there would hardly be any AIDS at all. One may, of course, reject those teachings out of hand, but the AIDS activists do not do so, according to the AFP. Rather, they emphasize the plight of those who would still be, by the pope's lights, innocent victims of the disease.
Another problem for POPE activists is that if everyone ignored the Pope's teachings on sex and wore condoms for sex outside marriage there would hardly be any AIDS at all.
*** QUOTE ***
They also say that AIDS is spread by lack of female empowerment: in many settings, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, a woman who cannot refuse intercourse or oblige her promiscuous husband to wear a condom places herself--and their foetus--at risk.
*** END QUOTE ***
A horrible situation, to be sure. But again, does it make any sense to blame the pope? If the husband is unfaithful to begin with, it's unlikely that religious scruples are the reason he eschews condoms during martial relations.
Hey Beavis, he said "eschews condoms." Hey Butthead, he just makes stuff up. Why would it be unlikely for the dude to pick and choose among his religious scruples the way everybody else does? Is he saying that sub-Saharan men are any less capable of endlessly self-serving rationalization than Wall Street Journalitas? Granted, they may not be so adept at ass-kissing and power-serving rationalizations, but God endows every man with an infinite ability for self-serving rationalizing. It's what separates us from the beasts in the fields, and wins us work at Dow Jones inc.
And let's say the AIDS activists succeeded in empowering African wives to abstain from sex or demand their husbands wear condoms. This would certainly prevent the spread of AIDS to future generations, but it would do so by preventing future generations.
Which is why the Pope of West Philly's prescription works in the real world and the Pope of West Rome's doesn't. Condoms outside the marriage and skin-to-skin-amen within.
Sex can be dangerous, but it's also necessary for human survival. Marital fidelity--the ideal the pope promoted--would seem to be the closest we can come to "safe sex."
And so Mr. Taranto proves himself not such a bad guy afterall with his endorsement here of gay marriage.
The flag of Kyrgyzstan has a circular flame motif. Perhaps they are a solar flare worshipping peoples. Or mayhaps they disassemble dissidents with circular saws, their blades heated nearly unto melting. Who can really say? Whatever the case, the fiery symbology is referenced and amplified in the billboard representation of the formerly esteemed leader of the Kyrgyz nation that illustrates this story of his Moscow getaway. Comrade Akayev, our newly fled hero, is clearly a chieftain-thieftain with floor scraping balls. He must have gouged quite a double groove in the road from Bishkek to Moskva. The story closes with this profile in Kyrgyz:
On Tuesday, a taped message from Akayev will be aired before a special session of Kyrgyz legislators is called. 4:03 PM
...a researcher has discovered unexpectedly large amounts of dandruff and other flaking skin, fur, pollen and similar materials in air pollutants known as aerosols.
Aerosols, tiny particles in air, are an important factor in regulating climate, variously absorbing heat to warm the air and reflecting sunlight to cool it.
They are also important in forming rain and snow.
...But the amount of cellular material - bacteria, plant fragments, spores, fungi and so forth - had been thought to be only a small amount compared with mineral dusts, clay and sea salt.
Now, Ruprecht Jaenicke of the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at Mainz University in Germany has studied air samples and discovered that biological materials can range up to 25 percent of aerosols in some areas, and as high as 40 percent in others.
My room for one. It's a veritable tornado alley in here with all the accumulated off-scruffings kicking up into dust devils then combining into shotgun shack cyclones. I keep the doors and winders closed so they don't escape.
(New Scientist)...Many of the tiny organic particles have shapes and structures that help form clouds and create rain. Particles made up of biological cells in particular are good at absorbing moisture in the air to form cloud condensation nuclei, says Jaenicke.
But the impact of bio-aerosols on global temperatures could be harder to predict, says Tim Lenton, an Earth systems researcher at the University of East Anglia in the UK. By dispersing solar radiation and shading the planet’s surface, “dry bio-aerosols will have a cooling effect on climate. But wet bio-aerosols could warm the Earth’s surface, especially at night, by contributing to fog and low-level cloud.”
The foggy nights indoors can be lovely, but you don't want to know about monsoon season.
2:31 PM
