saviour

well I'm all outta ideas

click for biggerness - it's a real treat...




http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/16622429904

If your solution to massive industrial accidents is prayer, and furthermore you believe "man's efforts" are "futile" I cordially suggest that you don't get to have an opinion. Shush now, the grown ups are talking.

Wait a minute... wasn't she pushing the whole 'drill drill drill!' policy in Alaska? What were their plans in the event of some terrible accident, asking a passing thunderstorm to help out? Relying on Zeus coming back to his people in the form of a giant Red Adair?

Richard Dawkins Reads His Hate Mail

Revival!

The WSJ reports on churches who are reviving the practice of shunning.

A church member asked her to leave, saying she was not welcome, but Mrs. Caskey told him she had come to worship and asked if they could speak after the service. Twenty minutes into the service, a sheriff's officer was at her side, and an hour later, she was in jail.

"It was very humiliating," says Mrs. Caskey, who worked for the state of Michigan for 25 years before retiring from the Department of Corrections in 1992. "The other prisoners were surprised to see a little old lady in her church clothes. One of them said, 'You robbed a church?' and I said, 'No, I just attended church.' "

Obsessed much?

Just what are those pesky far right folk most interested in?

http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics

a malignant tumour

A lot of the time my reaction to faith groups sticking their oar into issues just results in a tired sigh, a roll of the eyes and something muttered under my breath.

But this one really makes me genuinely proper angry. Hackles up, I can feel those adrenal glands working away they're prehistoric magic... preparing me to run like stink or kick off a fight.

As I'm sure all you well-read people know, a vaccination has been developed that has a 100% efficacy combating human papilloma virus (HPV), responsible for most cervical cancer cases. Cervical cancer kills 274,000 women annually - including 1,120 in the UK.

Fantastic news!

HPV is sexually transmitted. So for a vaccination programme to work well (with it's amazing 100% efficacy) we'll need to innoculate girls before they become sexually active. So far so obvious eh? I mean it's a simple principle isn't it.

Apparently not...

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice (UK), said today:

'The best way of not getting cervical cancer and genital warts is to stay a virgin and marry a virgin. Why don't these officials want young people to do that? Why don't we raise their expectations and ours and treat them with some respect?'

'I expect school health outreach workers from Primary Care Trusts and the like will be giving Gardasil to young girls behind their parents' backs. Since the vaccine works best before the onset of sexual activity, they will be treating these girls, to put it bluntly, like tarts, saying they are sexually incontinent, lacking in self-respect and the basic morality required to keep their virginity.

'The message is one of despair, disrespect and low expectations. Anyone giving this drug to a girl is telling her: "I think you are a slag".

Holy fucking shit! I don't have the text formatting available to communicate how angry I am. Never mind the willful ignorant dismissal of how vaccination works. The grotesque ignorance, guilt and fear over sexual function. He'd rather condemn countless future women to cervical cancer than entertain the idea that girls eventually become women.

Naturally there are groups like the Family Research Council spouting the same drivel in the States. Well if you are determined to live in the Dark Ages. Fuck off and live there you twunts. You can give back your internet and your reading glasses whilst you're at it and the internal combustion engine too. Gaahhh!

Fear and loathing

Synchronicity is a curious thing. WBB and I were reflecting on Dawkins being nicknamed 'Darwin's Rottweiler' when the only clips we've seen show him once more patiently setting out his case often to aggressive opposition. And now I discover reading Hunter S. Thompson's collected correspondence that the good Doctor had a Doberman called Darwin. Coincidence? I think not.

As big a fan of Thompson as I am, I was never completely clear where he stood on matters theological. The following pointed letter in reply to a fan of his book on Hell's Angels asking about christianity amongst bikers is typically brutal yet enigmatic.

April 21 1968
Woody Creek, Co

Dear Mr. Schultz...

...in response to your query about the Hell's Angels and Christianity - which I note you spelled with a capital "C". In that context, I'd have to say that the Hell's Angels have no attitude at all toward Christianity; this is one of the few redeeming facets of their collective personality. Through no fault of their own, they have been spared the millstone of one of history's greatest lies.
...the answer to your second question should be self-evident by now: the notion that capital C christianity might reach anybody who's in touch with the reality of this world strikes me as a hopeless joke. Those bastards have done enough damage with their hypocrital, dues-paying, soul-rotting cage of a mean religion. If any one of those swine had a decent impulse in him, he'd get the hell out of the way and make room for some christians.
I trust this answers your question.

Sincerely
Hunter S, Thompson