From The Humour File

I received this in an e-mail today:

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock will move." "Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?" "That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "and whose clock is that one?" St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life." "Where's Stephen Harper's clock?" asked the man. "Harper's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

The Scale Is Smaller

But I'm not seeing a lot of difference between The Pope's dogmatic opposition to condom use and what this bunch of religious whackjobs did to a 16 month old child.

Frankly, I hope that the judges involved in trying this case in Baltimore lock all of these nutbars up in separate prisons until they come out of the utterly destructive group hallucination they have been party to.

I suppose in the Pope's case it falls under the same rationale as this old statement:

"If you kill one person it's murder; if you kill thousands it's policy"

Why The Pope Is DEAD WRONG About Condoms

It's not like Pope Ratzinger hasn't been swatted around already for his statements about condom use in Africa, but then again, today I spotted a story on BBC's website that puts the whole tragedy into into human terms.

Zenthu lives in a shack where she sleeps in the same room as her father and adult older brothers. She says that they are often drunk and sometimes there is no food for the family in the evenings.

The moment I ask her about her mother she bursts into tears, sobbing and sobbing.
...
Her mother gave birth to her baby sister two years ago, but months later still looked pregnant.
...
Despite the presence of other adults in the household, the care for both the new baby and her dying mother fell to Zenthu, then just 12 years old.

She began skipping school to tend to her mother.

Eventually, in Zenthu's words her mother "succumbed to the excruciating pains".

She had died from HIV/Aids. One in three pregnant mothers in some townships has the virus - so everyone must surely know someone with HIV. But the stigma means it is not discussed.

Imagine being twelve, and being the primary caregiver to the person who brought you into this world. Watching her wither away and die day by day - slowly and painfully.

Why? Because she had sex with someone who was HIV+...whether or not they knew it.

What's worse, is that the tragedy repeats itself with the next generation:

Or perhaps once they have been orphaned they are more likely to develop relationships with older men who can give them clothes and mobile phone time, but whose age makes them more likely to have HIV.

Or that without their parents' protection they might be more vulnerable to rape, a crime so common that some mothers living in the townships take their daughters to have long-lasting contraceptive injections at the age of 12 or 13, not because they think they're going to choose to have sex, but because the likelihood they'll be raped is so high.

Think about these things a bit. The dogmatic insistence of the Pope on "abstinence" is rooted in some fantasy world where everybody follows the same rules. Out in the real world, it's a much harsher, grittier picture. Condoms are a necessary part of the fight against HIV/AIDS, just like realistic sex education is. Sticking your head in the sand isn't going to do it.

Unfortunately, people in Africa are dying, and because old men in cassocks don't want to face the reality of that situation, simple things that could be done are being suppressed. This isn't just wrong, it's a moral failing far beyond that which they are so quick to criticize others for.

Will They Dispose of Anders?

I've watched Calgary West with the same kind of fascination that a wreck on the Deerfoot evokes.

While the Reform/Alliance party existed, it wasn't too hard to see how Rob Anders managed to get nominated repeatedly. However, when the Alliance party merged with the former Progressive Conservatives, there were suddenly some fairly serious challenges to Anders.

To this point, the Conservative party apparatus has moved to protect Anders whatever way they can, including changing the rules for nominations when Anders was clearly in danger of losing the nomination. How it is that Anders continues to be protected by the party apparatus is beyond me. The man is embarrassment to Canada and Canadians ... and it isn't some magical personality trait that gets him elected in a tough riding - you could nominate a bale of hay as a conservative in Calgary and it would get elected.

However, another move happened yesterday that might signal a sea change in Calgary West. It seems that most of Anders' supporters on the local riding board were swept away in what I presume was the AGM vote to replace the riding executive.

It's a sad statement about Alberta's political scene that this looks like some kind of victory for democracy; an even sadder statement is that Anders has been elected at all.

Dismantling The Saw About Polygamy and SGM

I see that a former Supreme Court Justice has a very similar take on the polygamy issue to what I have published on this blog before:

Claire L'Heureux-Dube, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, does not buy the argument that polygamy should be allowed in Canada in the name of freedom of religion.

"It is contrary to the equality of the sexes," L'Heureux-Dube said Thursday at a breakfast conference organized by Fatima Houda-Pepin, deputy Speaker of the Quebec national assembly.

L'Heureux-Dube, who has no problem with same-sex marriage, said the law is already clear in Canada and polygamy does not have the same acceptance as same-sex marriage.

...

"Marriage is a union of two people, period," she said, adding that Canada's Criminal Code clearly states that polygamy is illegal.

She makes one other very interesting comment, and it is one we should bear in mind when considering related subjects coming out of the United States, as well as some of the goofier things we've seen in Canada:

L'Heureux-Dube noted that in the United States authorities lay charges of sexual exploitation, rather than polygamy, because in the U.S. "freedom of religion has become a religion."

The retired high-court judge, who is still active at 81, said "reasonable accommodation" of religious differences is important, but it must be reasonable.

Revisiting the case of a Montreal YMCA that frosted its windows at the request of its Hassidic Jewish neighbours, she suggested a reasonable course for people who do not want to see women exercising in spandex.

"They should close their eyes," she said.

The simple fact is that the only people who claim any kind of relationship between SGM and Polygamy are the shrieking loons of the religious right. Nobody has ever put forth a single shred of coherent evidence that demonstrates even the slightest equivalency.

The coming trial will be very interesting indeed.

Thin Skinned and Unaccountable Harper

I see once again that when the heat starts to get up in the kitchen, Harper runs away. This time, to the United States to do a bunch of network interviews down there - because he's too scared of what Canadian journalists might ask him:

No government-to-government business or meetings are planned Sunday in Washington and Monday in New York, said his spokesman, and the full list of media outlets Harper will speak to is not being released.

"The prime minister will be in these cities in his capacity as the prime minister of Canada, but with the purpose of speaking with international media about Canada's position going into the G20 and NATO summits," Kory Teneycke said Friday during a briefing on Harper's pending trip to London, Germany and France.

Think about this for a minute. Do you really believe that Americans give a flying fig what Harper's position is on anything? This is Harper going where he thinks he can get an "easy ride" interview instead of dealing with real issues.

Canadian correspondents were told not to bother trying to track Harper in Washington or New York. "You will likely be disappointed," said Teneycke.

The prime minister's latest round of media shopping comes just a month after he was last in New York.

It's part of a strategy to limit Harper's Canadian interrogations - where the questions tilt toward the specifics of Canada's troubled domestic economy - in favour of foreign media who can be expected to compare this country favourably to its international partners.

Oh yes, how typical of Canada's most dishonorable PM. He can't - and won't - face real questions about real issues. Instead he wants to flit about the world stage bragging about how great things are in Canada. Meanwhile Canadians are losing their jobs in droves, and the economy is slowly grinding itself to a halt.

As if to underscore the point about looking for a softball interview, we find this little turd being released by the PMO:

The only detail provided by the Prime Minister's Office was that Harper will be doing a live interview on Fox News on Sunday morning and a CNN interview on Monday.

The Fox interview comes less than a week after some Conservatives called on Canadians to boycott the network because of an offensive late-night talk show that disparaged Canadian military efforts in Afghanistan.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay called the Fox program "disgusting" and "crass" and a Conservative strategist said he hoped Canadians would cancel their Fox News subscriptions and that Canadian advertisers would stop doing business with the network.

Teneycke downplayed the controversy Friday, noting Harper's interview is with a prominent Fox News personality.

"There is a big difference between an interview with Chris Wallace - one of the most respected journalists in the Washington gallery who is a very substantive and tough interviewer - and a comedian, so-called comedian, with a show at 3 a.m. on a cable channel. It's different."

No, it's not different. Faux News should be boycotted by every Canadian this side of creation until they issue a credible apology and fire the bunch of morons that were so disparaging towards our troops less than a month ago. However, it is no secret that Faux News is a parrot stand for NeoCon talking points - that's why Harper's going there.

What PMSH is forgetting is that Americans don't elect him - Canadians do. ... and Canadians should rightly be outraged by this Prime Minister's refusal to communicate with them in any meaningful way, and insulted by the fact that he chooses to communicate more with Americans than he does with Canadians.

Yet Another Celibate In A Cassock On Sexuality

I see Calgary's Bishop Henry is dutifully parroting his masters in the Vatican:

In a letter to the editor, Henry said the Christian virtues of chastity, abstinence and fidelity are "the most effective means of primary HIV prevention," and should not be pushed aside as valid prevention options in favour of passing out condoms.

When asked about his opposition to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Henry said teachers do have other options in supporting AIDS charity efforts in Africa.

"If you have two businesses or organizations, one that doesn't support your values and mission statement and an-other that does, which one are you going to support? I think that the answer is obvious," Henry told the Herald in an e-mail.

Glad to see you are such an obedient scribe for your masters, Henry...now, perhaps you might do something useful and start actually thinking for yourself and looking at the reality of the world. Perhaps you might figure out that people have sex all the time - regardless of what moralizing stance the Catholic Church puts forward.