Thank you, Stephen Colbert.

Goddam Catholics can't get anything right. (Hat tip to Daddio)

Recently, a retired Cardinal of the Catholic church voiced his opinion that condoms are a "lesser evil" when used to prevent the spread of AIDS. This week, a top cardinal announced that the Vatican is preparing a document regarding the use of condoms by those who are infected with HIV/AIDS.

The Catholic Church has, thus far, proudly clung to its life-affirming mantra of "punish the sluts with forced childbirth and death-by-STDs." Official statements issued by the Church have encouraged Catholics and missionary groups to teach blatant misinformation regarding condoms and the spread of HIV. I reviewed many of these lies a while back.

Married women are the population at highest risk for HIV infection in many areas of Africa, yet the Church has persisted in telling HIV-postive husbands not to use condoms to protect their wives. Catholic missionaries tell African men that condoms will cause them to become impotent, that condoms will cause them to contract STDs, that condoms do not protect against HIV, that condoms cause birth defects, and any other lie they feel necessary to prevent the use of condoms.

(In America, if a non-religious organization committed this kind of dangerous fraud, we would call it negligent homicide at the very least. Given the number of victims and the premeditation involved, it is more likely that the perpetrator would be charged with multiple counts of manslaughter.)

It is certainly too much to hope that Pope Benedict XVI will reverse the Church's anti-human stance on contraception, but there is a faint glimmer of hope that he will at least condescend to allow married, monogamous couples to use condoms for protection against spreading AIDS from an already-infected spouse to a non-infected spouse.

I'm not holding my breath.

On a related note, the CA State Supreme Court is addressing a case that asks, "Should an HIV-positive individual be legally required to divulge their status to their sexual partner(s)?" It is already a felony in California to knowingly infect another party with HIV/AIDS.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

George W Bush sings Imagine

To laugh, or to cry?

Daddio and Boo are in town for a visit, and we've been having some good times around DC. Highlights so far include:

At The National Zoo...
-Baby pandas are cute; grown-up pandas are like giant rugs that occasionally roll over.
-Golden lion tamarins may be little, but they don't take no shit from white-faced saki monkeys
-According to a member of the zoo staff, if they took down the fence separating 5 cheetahs from a lone zebra, "the zebra would win."

Out At Dinner...
-Boo: "This stuff tastes good, and wormy. I like this wormy stuff."
-We are sitting outside, with Boo facing the street and watching passing traffic with great interest. After about 15 minutes of sitting, Boo mournfully reports that not a single emergency vehicle has gone past. Daddio remarks, "That would be [Boo]'s restaurant review column: 'Very few emergency vehicles passed by this restaurant. I give it a rating of one fire truck. Oh, and the food was okay.'"

In The Hotel Room...
-Both Daddio and I liked the movie The Fugitive, but neither of us had seen the first 15 minutes of it until this weekend.
-Me (to Boo): "You know who Tommy Lee Jones is, right?"
Boo: "He's the guy who shoots the alien."

When I grow up, I want to be a corrupt ego-maniac who is regarded as a buffoon by every intelligent human being on planet Earth!

In Scholastic magazine's 2004 poll, 75 percent of elementary students said they would like to hold the nation's top office. This year's results, however, found that 80 percent do not want the job.

The editors say that they "doubt it's linked to the unpopularity of President George Bush." But we know better, don't we kids?

Giblets sums up the gay marriage debate so neatly that further debate on the topic is now completely superfluous.

Equality is a slippery slope, people, and if you give it to the gays you have to give it to the polygamists and if you give it to the polygamists you have to give it to the serial dog molesters and if you give it to the serial dog molesters you have to give it to the machine fetishists and the next thing you know you're being tied up by a trio of polygamist lesbian powerbooks and you can't get out because the safety word is case sensistive!

Because I get to work at 7:30 every morning, my bedtime is normally a sad and dorky 11:00pm. But I stayed up late last night just so that I could be awake at three seconds after 1:02am.

I wanted to be awake for 01:02:03, 04/05/06.

UPDATE: Ok, spooky coincidence time. Today is the day I submit my very first ever grant application, which is being hand-delivered by courier to the NIH. The receipt the courier gave me says that he picked up the application envelopes at 1:02pm.