(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.

I really quite despise sites that have rigid rules around usernames. General courtesy rules (e.g. such as no profanity in a username) are fine, but any site that tries to force me to use my “real name” I find immediately frustrating.

The most recent tussle with this problem was with Facebook. Their registration system really tries to box you into using your real name. I entered “r3v” and it told me, “You must provide your full name.”

So, then I changed my entry to “r3v zero”. (r3vZERO, r3v.zero, etc are names I tend to use when a system won’t allow me to use a three character name. (e.g. XBox Live) It’s like adding a 0, without making it look like “revo”. Heh. Other times, I use “xt0ph3r”. (e.g. Digg, Myspace) Another pet peeve.)

“The name contains invalid characters.” It doesn’t like the 3. I can’t have a number in my name, it seems. So, I de-1337ed and tried “rev”. No go, of course because last name needed. So, now I’m “Rev Zero” on facebook. (They enforce capitalization.)

End result? They still don’t have my given name and I’m stuck with a stupid username. Neither of us are happy. What good was that?

Some might argue that I should have just given in and used my given name, but why? I don’t use my given name for nearly anything online, including sites that grant a fairly large, if not boring, view into my personal (aka real) life. The vast majority of my friends either know me only as r3v, know me primarily as r3v or, at least, know that’s what I always try to use online.

I’ve actually put some effort into it. (r3v.com is a three letter dotcom, ya know. Wasn’t cheap to kick the squatter off.)

Therefore, “r3v” is almost always the best way to find me, or even find out more about me. Forcing me to use my “real” name (or some made-up bullshit) is actually COUNTER productive.

They should have leveraged one of the things that MySpace actually GOT RIGHT. Myspace allows you to enter your given name, but keeps it hidden and allows it to be searched on. As a general rule. it’s bad when MySpace does something better than you. K?

PS: (I haven’t committed to the “Rev Zero” name yet, I’m still looking for a better way to game their system. I have, however, gone ahead and added it to my ClaimID.)

The other night, I got into a fairly heated chatroom debate about this article on digg. Everyone agreed that it was a horrific story and felt bad for the girl. So, what was the argument about? Culture.

It started to get heated when one person began deriding all of Islam and Middle Eastern culture. Defenders stepped up to play their roles in a conversation that’s been had a million times since 2001. I was fairly uninterested, but watched the conversation scroll, curious to see if someone would say something new or different.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, I, unexpectedly, blew a gasket when someone said this of Saudi Arabia: “Their culture may seem backwards and strange to you, but ours seems just as foreign and wrong to them. It’s just a different perspective.” Several people agreed.

“Yeah, a fucked up and wrong perspective. So it is different in that way, to be sure. >.<” Those were my first words in the discussion.

I’m all about diversity and respecting different cultures. That doesn’t mean all cultures though. Some things in this world just don’t deserve respect. Things like zina’, hudud & sharia do not deserve respect. These things are some of the major elements of Saudi culture, so it, too, does not deserve respect.

I’m not lumping all Middle Eastern or Islamic cultures into one pile. This is about the Saudis and Wahhabism.

I’m also not proclaiming that American and/or Western culture is perfect. It’s not. It is, however, better than Saudi culture. It may not be politically correct to say so, but it’s true.

…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.

This (Limbaugh: Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s ‘Acting’) news story is everywhere.

So, I just thought I’d say: Fuck Rush Limbaugh. Fuck him in his big fat head.

I just saw Bloodrayne. A vampire movie based on a computer game that probably only a few dozen people ever played. The game was fun, so I was hoping the movie would be too. However, as the film marched through the phases of production and I saw Uwe Boll chosen as the director, my hopes faltered.

Well, really, they fell right on their face.

So, when I got the DVD via Netflix recently, I wasn’t expecting much from the movie. However, even my low expectations could not prepare me for this movie.

This movie made me wish I could take my eyeballs out and sterilize them.

The direction was as bad as can be imagined. Full of cheezy camera effects, silly slow motion and overly dramatic flashbacks. It’s puzzling that they’ve handed over the reins of three more game titles to Boll to direct (and produce). Don’t expect anything out of the Dungeon Siege, Postal or Far Cry movies.

The casting was also full of some bizarre choices. Rayne was played by Kristanna Lokken who, while pretty, proved to us in Terminator 3 that she couldn’t even act like a robot. Michelle Rodriguez (aka Miss Got Her Ass Fired From Lost For Drunk Driving) plays a vampire hunter and slips in and out of the worst accent I’ve heard since Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood. Other oddities include Michael Madsen, Billy Zane and Meatloaf… yes, Meatloaf. They somehow roped Ben Kingsley into playing the villain, as well.

I’m guessing Uwe has naked pictures of Sir Ben and a goat, or something. Though I think that might have been less embarrassing than being in this movie. (Ok, and to be fair, Michael Madsen and Meatloaf are also pretty good actors… but neither of them were properly cast in this flick.)

The movie was written by Guinevere Turner, who I really want to say nice things about because she’s a writer on the L-Word, inspired the movie Chasing Amy and is Kevin Smith’s ex-girlfriend. So, what can I say about her? Uh… she doesn’t normally suck this bad?

The plot was transparent (and completely off from the game, but, compared to everything else, I couldn’t care less about that… except at least the game was interesting) and the dialog was some of the worst melodrama I’ve heard in a long time. Just painful.

However, the biggest problems with the movie were the special effects and the fight sequences, both of which were considerably inferior to the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Sorry, Buffy fans.. but that first season was BAD.) I’ve seen better stuff done by amateurs on YouTube. (Serisouly. Check that link. It’s kinda cool.)

Then, at the end of the movie, Uwe does the most inexplicable, weirdest, fuckin’ thing I can imagine him doing… replaying all of the gory violence in SLOW MOTION so you can REALLY see how bad it is. And it turns out to be worse than you thought it was the first time. I mean.. why would you DO that?

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.

Did you ever wonder if those asshole jocks who bullied kids in high school ever became real, worthwile human beings out in the real world? No, not if they become professional atheletes, apparently. Thanks for the newsflash, Ricky Manning Jr. Good to know you’re still the same troglodyte your probably were in high school.

From the article:

According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Police Department detective Robert Lewis said a group of people — including Manning — attacked a man in a Denny’s restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.

“The group began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd,” Lewis said, according to the Sun-Times.

The newspaper quoted Lewis saying the victim complained to a Denny’s manager. He was then punched in the face, then punched and kicked by multiple attackers until losing consciousness.

One can only hope that the law comes down on the right side of this, and that then the victim takes it to civil court and scores big. Oh, I suppose I could also hope that Ricky Manning Jr is hit by a bus… after being dumped by the NFL and his fiancé.

Hrm, I also wouldn’t be too broken up if his website ( I think it’s <dickheadfootballjock.com> ) got hacked and his email ( mailto:fanmail@manning24.com) spammed to the point of no return. Of course, I wouldn’t condone that sort of thing.

At any rate, there had better be serious repercussions to acting like an immature high-school bully out in the real world.

(And you thought getting robbed was the only danger in using a laptop in public.)

You know, often the cases the ACLU picks to defend can be distasteful and unpleasant… but that’s what they are there for. Freedom of Speech is meaningless if you can’t say something that someone, or everyone, finds distasteful.

This is no such case.

In San Diego, a 15 year old high school student named Malia Fontana wore an American flag in her back pocket to protest the censorship of a fellow student who was forced to remove an American flag headband the month prior. When a school security guard told her to remove it, she questioned them. She was then brought to the assistant principle’s office and written up.

For wearing an American flag. Think about that for a moment. This is America. It was an American flag. America was suposedly founded on the ideas of freedom. The flag is a symbol of that ideology. Ok, are we on the same page regarding how ridiculously ironic that is? Yeah. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.

Apparently, she’s not going to have to spend any time in detention, but this negative report will remain in her otherwise spotless records until six months after graduation. (Although I imagine her mother and the ACLU are fighting that.) She’s a sophomore right now. Hopefully when this girl applies to college, the various Universities will see that report and realize that this kid is fucking awesome and they’d be lucky to have someone like her are their institution.

It’s kids like her that allow me to maintain a tenuous grasp on the hope that the future of America is not, in fact, lost.

Here’s the ACLU Press Release. Hit Google News, or your own favorite source, for other news on the topic.

Cheers to Malia for starting to fight the good fight at such an early age. Good on ya, girl.

My comment spam (which you aren’t seeing, because I moderate all comments from non registered users) is coming from a couple of IPs in Amsterdam. Dutch fuckers. Now, I realize that the owner of this particular machine may not be the spammer. It could be a compromised PC that’s being used as a bot, yadda, yadda, yadda. I don’t care. Screw them both.

If you don’t take the security of your machine seriously and you connect it to the Internet, you are part of the problem. That means you, 85.255.114.130.

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