(Any readers wanting some relgious tolerance in their posts today should look elsewhere.)

Archbishop Asshole Chimoio is the head of the Catholic church in Mozambique. There are about 20 million people in Mozambique. The CIA World Fact Book has this to say about Mozambique’s population:

Population: 20,905,585
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected; the 1997 Mozambican census reported a population of 16,099,246 (July 2007 est.)

The United States Center for Disease Control, has this to say:

Mozambique is one of 15 focus countries of the Emergency Plan which collectively represent at least 50 percent of HIV infections worldwide. Under the Emergency Plan, Mozambique received nearly $37.4 million in FY2004 to implement a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care program in line with Mozambique’s national strategies. In FY2005, the U.S. is providing more than $57.2 million to support Mozambique’s fight against HIV/AIDS.

A 2003 CIA estimate puts the HIV/AIDs infection percentage at 12.2%. Other estimates have it as high as 16.2% (That one came from the BBC article, I will link to shortly.)

The BBC article also says that “17.5 per cent of Mozambicans are Catholic.” The CIA Factbook says 23.8% were Catholic according to a census in 1997.(Now, please note, there’s no data to correlate those two sets of numbers (percentage of HIV positive vs percentage of Catholic), and I’m not trying to imply any linkage without such data.)

This is just to illustrate that AIDs is one of the worst problems facing Mozambique, Africa and the world. It’s also to point out that Archbishop Chimoio has some amount of sway over at least 1/6th to 1/5th or more of the population.

So, what does he do? He not only continues to wave the idiotic Catholic banner against condoms, but claims that there are two countries in Europe that are making condoms that actually contain the HIV virus on purpose. He is either mentally imbalanced or willfully deceitful. Those are really the only two options I can come up with.

He also claims that the anti-retroviral drugs being used to combat HIV are also infected with the virus. So, not only is he actively enabling the spread of the disease, he’s trying to inhibit the tools that will help the already infected. So, maybe there’s another option? He’s fucking evil?

It’s reprehensible and irresponsible to attempt to stop the use of condoms in the first place. Furthermore, it’s despicable to spread such FUD about condoms and the anti-retrovirals. Lastly, it’s fucking insane to think that two European countries are involved in a conspiracy to wipe out the African peoples.

The Pope should fire his ass. Of course, we’ve seen that this new Pope is no fucking genius when it comes to PR.

So, in closing, I’d just like to say: Fuck you Archbishop Chimoio, and fuck the Catholic Church. Fuck you right in your medieval-pointy-hat-wearing heads.

Via Boing Boing:

EFF accepts Barney’s surrender: Cory Doctorow:
EFF has won a settlement out of the corporate owners of Barney the Purple Dinosaur — a pack of legal bullies who use copyright law to threaten people who make fun of their character on the Internet.

Hahaha! Take that you giant, retarded Grimace rip-off!

I wrote a short story, or perhaps more of a long poem, well over a decade ago called “Barney & the Hunter”. It was about a lone woodsman who came back from a hunting expedition to find that a giant, purple monster had lured away all the children, so he set off to slay the beast. I had forgotten all about it until this news story. I have no idea where it is these days. Probably archived deep inside some long forgotten .tgz, .dmg or .zip file. heh.

…and 53% believe that the channel should not be launched at all.
It’s shocking that in such a free country, people ask their government to censor their information to decide what they can and can’t see.

read more | digg story

Well, you know what they say about statistics. That applies to most polls, obvisouly. So many of them are not conducted very scientifically at all and are done just to get a specific result to support a forgone conclusion.

However, it’s true that there are Americans who oppose the mere idea of al-Jazeera in English in the US. Accuracy In Media (hah) has a briefing on the subect entitled the Invasion of Al-Jazeera.

I know the idea of Al-Jazeera in the US is distasteful to some, despite that not everything Arabic is, you know, all terroristy.

It scares me deeply that these people are so willing to dump the First Ammendment due to their inane fear. I know this sounds trite, at this point, but it’s true: The terrorists are beating you. You are terrorized, you fucking xenophobic pussies. You disgust me.

In case you forgot:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Via thisislocallondon.co.uk:

Girl 14 Accused Of Supplying Machine Guns: A 14-YEAR-OLD girl from north-west London stands accused of conspiracy to supply a machine gun capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute.

The article goes on to discuss crime, violence and gangs in London. Gang warfare is on the rise. Then it talks about music videos and I nearly stopped reading, assuming this was the normal blame the media type hype, but for some reason, I continued…

The police chief points to a growing trend which is seeing gangs produce music videos, being broadcast on digital music channels, encouraging violent attacks on rivals.

Wow. That’s a bit worse than the standard glamorization of the gangsta lifestyle we see on MTV here in the States. That’s actual televised propaganda in a gang war. Kinda scary. Almost as scary is the proposed plan…

One solution put forward by Superintendent Logan is the US initiative of “street pastors”.

Under the American scheme volunteers from local churches, wearing overtly religious clothing, patrol crime hotspots.

The report claims that black males aged between 13 and 19 are less likely to commit crime if they know a pastor is around.

<facepalm> Of course it’s an American scheme. Well, all I can say to these church patrols is good luck (honestly) and you might want to consider carrying something heftier than the word of god with you.

Oh… AND I THOUGHT GUNS WERE ILLEGAL IN THE U.K.? :P

Via the Daily Mail:

‘Unclean’ guide dog banned by Muslim cab driver | the Daily Mail: A Muslim minicab driver refused to take a blind passenger because her guide dog was “unclean”.

Abdul Rasheed Majekodumni told Jane Vernon she could not get into his car with the dog because of his religion.

Islamic tradition warns Muslims against contact with dogs because they are seen as impure.

That’s about as far as I got in the article before I paused, flipped out a little bit inside my skull, and then went to Google to see if there was anything I could find to back this up.

Yeah, there’s a LOT to back it up.

Seems dogs are not prohibited as pets in the Quran itself, however Muhammad still didn’t think much of them apparently. Ok, so he wasn’t a dog person. It ends there, right? Not so much. Hadith, which has nearly as much of an impact on a muslim’s daily life as the Quran and Sharia, pretty much states dogs can only be used for security and hunting.

I’ve just read about five different explanations of the Islam stance on dogs and a couple of counterpoints from muslims as well, one saying that that particular hadith is fabricated. After all of it, I come away feeling that Islam is a weirder religion than I thought.

A few days ago, papal newbie, Pope Benedict XVI was addressing some of his fans at the Vatican. In a questionable career move, he made some remarks about Islam that has really pissed off a lot of people with beards.

The Pope, addressing the press, said “Man, I didn’t think any muslims would hear me. Who knew those guys even spoke Latin? Fuck, those guys are touchy.”

Muslim nutjobs everywhere have demanded that the Pope “take it back” or they will “kick his ass.” They further demonstrated their peaceful natures by shouting, burning effigies, firebombing churches and in one case, shooting a nun who spent her life helping sick people in Africa†.

“Hoo boy! Yeah, you guys are real rational. I see that now. My bad,” the Pope responded. “Sh’yeah right.”

The slightly less nutter muslims in the world responded with more peaceful retorts. “Look, the whackjobs with the guns and all the fire and stuff don’t speak for all muslims,” one muslim chilling at Starbucks said, “besides, we’re kinda ‘we’re rubber and you’re glue’ with the Pope anyways. Christians and Catholics and whatever shouldn’t go pointing the finger about violence. Remember the crusades, anyone?”

The Pope’s manager issued a very brief statement on behalf of the Pope this morning, stating that “the big guy” regretted pissing off his muslim fans. When pressed for further comment, the manager said that he knew the Pope was working on some new material, but didn’t realize it would be so “edgy” and that they might discuss toning it down.

When asked for comment, the Dali Lama simply shook his head and said, “Dude.”

I know I have some friends and family that will think this is a good thing.

Via nbc11.com:

NBC11.com - News - Gov. Signs Bill On Cell Phone Use While Driving: Simitian, who has been working on the legislation for five years, said the bill “is a common-sense measure which will make our roads safer and save lives.”

<snip>

Simitian [the democrat state senator responsible for the bill -r3v], who has been working on the legislation for five years, said the bill “is a common-sense measure which will make our roads safer and save lives.”

I know it’s annoying, seeing bad (i.e. inattentive) drivers on their cell phones, yapping away when they should be paying attention to the road. I hate ‘em too. Almost as much as I hate the idea of this law.

Legislation of “common-sense” is the kind of thing that really irritates me. It’s just another little piece of freedom chipped away and more bloat added to an already too large government. The government doesn’t do anything well, so continually expanding their responsibilities is not something that should be done lightly. Especially legislating something they nothing about, like common-sense.

Additionally, and entirely secondary, it’s insulting. Same with the helmet and seat-belt laws. Frankly, I don’t care how many lives, if any, those laws have saved. I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to protect us from ourselves. Then again, I’m also for the legalization of drugs, prostitution and the right to die. So, what do I know?

Some will argue that those laws are for financial reasons. To prevent uninsured people ending up being fixed on the taxpayer’s dime, etc. That’s a problem with the health and insurance systems though. Fix those foundations, rather than adding on to an already shaky structure on top of them.

Imagine a world like Sherman’s Lagoon or Liberty Meadows where the animals read newspapers and watch TV.

INT. CROCODILE BREAKFAST NOOK - MORNING

A big, fat, white crocodile, FRANK, sits are the breakfast table reading
the paper and enjoying his morning coffee.  His wife, MABEL, is preparing
breakfast.

FRANK: Crikey!

MABEL: What now? (disinterested)

FRANK: Irwin's dead! 

MABEL: Who now?

FRANK: Steve. Steve Irwin.  You know, that blonde aussie git.  Call's
'isself the "Crocodile Hunter".  We been gunnin' for that cocky bastard
for years.

MABEL: Oh, right, right.  Who got 'im?  Lou?  John? Oh, I bet it was that
new croc' down the marsh... what's his name?  Jeb?

FRANK: Hold on, hold on. I'm readin'.

MABEL: Or was it Jed?  No! That's it, it was Zed!  Right? Or, Ned?

FRANK: What in the--?!  I don't believe this. 

MABEL: What now?

FRANK: A fuckin' Stingray got him.  That's bullshit. He was *ours*.

MABEL: What's a Stingray?

So, in case you haven’t heard the news: Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is dead. He was stabbed through the heart by a Stingray a couple of days ago.

There are lots of people I know that are bummed about this. Frankly, I didn’t like him very much. I found him quite annoying. (I grew up with Wild Kingdom, so I’m more of a Jim Fowler fan myself.) I also thought he took unnecessary risks. Unacceptable behavior for the father of two young children, in my opinion. Do I have to even mention the croc-feeding-while-holding-his-baby incident? (Oh, look, I did anyways.)

Not that I wished him any ill will, of course. (Well, I admit to pulling for the crocs once in a while, before Irwin had kids.) However, if you liked him then be bummed. That’s ok. I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion of him. Feel what ya feel.

What gets me, though, is that I’ve run into a few people who are “shocked” or “surprised”. Um, hello? The man took life-jeapordizing risks nearly daily as part of his job. It’s how he got famous. Seems that people just took his apparent immortality for granted. Television inspired fame does weird things to people’s perceptions of reality.

If Irwin hadn’t been famous, his obituary would have read “44 year old amateur biologist and crocodile wrestler, killed by Stingray.” The public reaction would have been more along the lines of: “No shit.”

From the NYTimes (reg required, or bugmenot), via Digg:

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Senate today fell one vote short of approving a constitutional amendment that would have enabled Congress to ban desecration of the American flag.

The vote was 66 to 34. To pass, the measure needed 67 votes.

read more‘|’digg story

One vote. That’s too fucking close. There are 66 Senators who either don’t get freedom of speech or don’t care about it. Additionally, I don’t think they understand patriotism either.

The whole thing reeks of a political land grab and it’s disgusting.

In-game advertising — a marketing frontier long on the periphery of most brands’ radar — is poised to take its place center stage.read more‘|’digg story

Coincidentally, my buddy Eric has a post on this very topic today, which was prompted by this post on Chris Carella’s blog about some poll data on the topic.

On the surface, Eric’s take on it is similar to my own, but I have some misgivings about the concept and considering the nature of advertising, I figure the worst possible scenario is the closest to a true prediction. So, I am going to break it down a bit and show what I see as the areas for concern are.

Read more »