Catholics hiding pedophilia

The document released by the church basically want to blame homosexuals for the pedophilia scandals in the US! Any reasonable person knows these are not related, but will the religious know the difference? Surely they will see the difference and realize that this does nothing to address the culture of secrecy! Right? Damn those fuckers are good! They must be learning for the Republicans! For a religious person I guess it's a small step from homosexuality to pedophilia. What can I say but:

If we believe in absurdities we shall commit atrocities

-Voltaire

Christian "news" and the power of competition

As I've always said there are redeeming qualities of some corporations. Recently the News Hour (PBS) aired a report on Christian news in the US (search for Christian news on the page provided). Although the numbers are still pretty small, they are noisy! There are currently 6 TV stations and a seventh is coming in soon. As the market grows (and since the viewer base is expanding that's unfortunately likely) and more money is involved competition will heat up. I wonder if the competition will be very Christian? My hope is the competition will eventually turn ugly and dilute the message and a lot of the industry will implode (sending the viewers back to FOX). If not, we will have reinforced ignorance every night instead of just Sundays.

Male contraception and religion

After reading what feels like the millionth report on population control for my TA I started to wonder about the effects of a male contraceptive pill. A secret reason contraception isn't wanted in Roman Catholics (and some Protestants) or Muslims is because it gives the women power. But if the male could take the pill would these religions stop the males? In both of them the male reins supreme (over one or many wives) and the only thing a man can't do is masturbate and go outside of wedlock (although if your Muslim you can have multiple wives). So although the male contraceptive would permit the latter would the churches take the same route and more importantly would it work?
I surmise that officially they would have the same view (touted as a gender equality thing too) for the men, but my guess is this would drive many men away from the religions and create bigger splinter groups (especially of Muslims).

Alien first contacts and public money

In this strange article there seem to be even stranger talks about an odd subject: “a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial society’s full cultural, political, social, legal, and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth.”

Although I am all for most of the expenditures, I think there is an arrogance here only real scientists understand. On the rare occasion when I wind up in a discussion with someone about aliens and our first contactusuallyaly try and make the point that it ludicrous for us to think we could possibly defend ourselves from such an invasion. The technology required to get here would be soo far ahead of ours it would make amy of the Roman victories over the Jews look like a close contest. So to me the idea that the US may start a war with any visitors without the rest of our consent seems unlikely. Would you wipe out mosqitos because one bit you? I think any visitors would be able to see there are many different cultures and not all would react the same way, but that's all obvious. The only problem is I like the idea of more science education (even if the hook is aliens) and public science outreach. Do the ends justify the means in this case? How much could we benifit from a broad public discussion of our cultures from the context of extra-terrestials? I would suppose a lot since from there vantage point all differences would be minute. I'd like the public to hear that, expecially the book-huggers. So in this case I think the ends would justify the means.

First Acupuncture now glucosamine

If you have a TV watching elder with arthritis, you've probably heard of glucosamine. Like a previous acupuncture study that found wrongly done acupuncture by a non-practitioner was more effective than the "real" thing, a big glucosamine study has concluded and shown that it was a placebo. But if you search on google news you'll find stories that suggest the study proved it worked for moderate to sever arthritis. But as the study authors put it on the National on CBC that it was soo small it could easily have easily have been a fluke.

Proof of Principle: GMO

Recently there's been a very clear demonstration the dangers of corporate research and GMO foods. This article talks about some peer-reviewed research about how a genetically modified pea had the new protein slightly differently expressed. This ended up causing some lung damage due to an immune response in the mice. In terms of the GMO issue, I think this shows that very stringent tests on GMO products are needed since there is no easy way to "undo."

As for corporate issue, I think this speaks volumes about the potential dangers. Imagine if this was Merck and they hid it like Vioxx. You can't recall a crop. I don't think that corporations should not be allowed to pursue the technology (that's silly), but the research should be monitored by a strong independent government body (like the FDA but with balls). By this I mean all the research, interactively so that none goes unread. If they aren't willing that's fine, it's an expensive endeavor. Eventually much more will be understood about protein synthesis and less tests will be necessary. Until then let's let the US military destroy the world, not killer tomatoes.

Kansas, even more of a laughingstock with intellgent design

We'll the morons have it! The Kansas board has redefined the definition of science so now it is no longer "limited to natural explainations!" Must be an easy class to pass. Imagine a Kansas test:
1) Why do things fall down?
A: Becasue of a spell cast 1000 years ago by an evil wizard who wanted to make Jesus's hair look like a hippie's.

The only real recourse that can have a significant impact is if top US universities start critizing the course content as insufficient to get admission (as Berkley is doing). Most parents want their kids to at least have a chance to get into University, so if the school won't teach what's necessary they will take action. Hopefully it will be the right one.

Evolution and the Vatican, an odd twist

In a recent release by the director of the Vatican's Observatory (who knew!) said that teaching intelligent design in schools as science was wrong. This is quite surprising, but definitely welcome. The last pope also weighed in, accepting evolution (officially making intelligent designers heretics :-)

Expiry dates

Do they date these products so that the person with the weakest immune system or stomach can eat them on their last day? Some products like bread and cheese grow visible amount of mold after their expiry dates. But what about a lot of processed stuff? I've eaten plenty of expired almost anything and I still have no first hand definition of the words constipation or heart burn. I've eaten bowl of pasta (with hot peppers), pizza, eggs, steak, hamburgers etc well past midnight and I've never encountered any problems. Many people I know also have no problem. So I wonder where these standards are set. Clearly the amount of bacteria that will harm one person will be much different from what will harm another, so is it all just old wives tales? Oh well, now I'm hungry, pasta it is.

Oil and "Free-Market"

The recent investigation by the Now team has shown the problem with the free market economy with a commodity that is a necessity. The spike in the cost of gas (to which in principle I'm not opposed) seems to have been caused by anticompetitive behavior by the industry. This is nothing new, but this is something people care about. It is a powerful political issue and could cause a real reform of the corporate laws. Or Washington will continue to look the other way and give them subsidies, but hopefully the public profit statements will not allow for that.

Zundel and fascism

This trial of Zundel is completely preposterous! Imprisoning someone because they deny something happened!! This is soo similar to the "Though Police" its disheartening. And then how can Germany criticize other nations for human right abuses if they jail someone for his views! This is not spreading hate, this is having a false view of history. But the idea the government gets to decide what view of history to back is very dangerous (I'm not suggesting theirs is wrong, but look at Japan's constant denial of it's treatment of conquered territory in China during WWII). Deciding history and having a thought police is WAY too much power for a government and it's very sad this law is even on the books. Imagine if the crazy right wing in the US wins more power, they could enact the same law for Resurrection deniers, or atheist etc! It's completely absurd. I wouldn't even put a similar law for evolution deniers.

Keep your Jesus off my Pensis!

And now for something completely different! A song about the American Christian hypocracy.
Catchy toon and you can't argue with the premis!

News Release

Bonnie is pregant! After Three months of trying :-) I'm all for the child part but not looking forward to most of the pregnacy. So if my blogs get bitter, you know why.