William K. Wolfrum

This is why more and more people are listening to, and agreeing with the likes of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. And also why believers are pulling away from organized religion in droves.

This one statement will lead to the death of thousands. Archbishop Francisco Chimoio and every one at the Vatican including the Pope should be tried for murder. It’s that simple. They have gotten a free pass on murdering millions for far too long.

“S. African bishop: Condoms tainted with AIDS”

MAPUTO, Mozambique (Reuters) - The head of the Catholic church in Mozambique said on Wednesday he believed some European-made condoms were deliberately tainted with the HIV/AIDS virus to kill African people.

“I know of two countries in Europe who are making condoms with (the) virus on purpose, they want to finish with African people as part of their program to colonize the continent,” Archbishop Francisco Chimoio told Reuters.

“If we are not careful we will finish in one century.

“I also know some companies who are manufacturing anti-retroviral drugs already infected with the virus, also in order to finish quickly the African people,” Chimoio said.

He declined to name the European countries in question or the source of his allegations.

The Catholic Church, followed by 17 percent of Mozambique’s population, opposes the use of condoms.

“People must choose what they want between death and I propose to them that (abstinence) is the best way to fight HIV/AIDS,” Chimoio said.

More than 16 percent of Mozambique’s 19 million people, mostly economically active adults aged between 14 and 49, are infected with HIV/AIDS. About 500 infections are recorded every day, according to the health department.

–WKW

He crawled out of the bunker and look skyward. Taking a deep breath, he again checked the gauges. The coast was clear.

It had been a long, torturous haul. The incessant boredom had nearly driven him mad. His wife had left him, taking their child. His career was over.

But he had survived. He had outlasted Xenu.

(more…)

It’s getting increasingly difficult to read about national politics in the U.S. and not come to the conclusion that full-blown anarchy sounds more and more appealing. Sure, it will be hard to find anyone to take out the trash, but that stink would likely be less than the stink that currently permeates Washington.

Just one look at the current Presidential campaign is enough to make one wish for a government-less society. While the public overwhelmingly wants the U.S. to stop occupying Irag and not take over any new countries, the candidates are busily paying homage to the industrial military complex and neocon dream machine by amping up their war rhetoric and talking about staying in Iraq through their terms. Even more, the Democratic party is making no effort to protect the civil liberties of the public from a Republican party that has proven itself to be little more than a front for an authoritarian regime.

It’s frustrating, to say the least. And sure, maybe I’m coming off as a touch radical here, but let me just say …

Um, hold on. Got a call I have to take.

Honey! How are you? I miss you, too. Yes I love you very much. Ooh yes I do. I’m just a little busy right now with a blog post. Is everything ok? Great? What? Yeah, maybe they think I’m a little radical, but, hey, I’m the guy who wrote “The Swiftboating of Jesus H. Christ: A look back,” right? Remember that? How brave I was? Yeah, I am something, aren’t I? Ok, I have to run. I’m writing a blog post, remember? Yes, I love you. Oooh yes I do. Vewwy much. I’ll see you tonight. Be safe.

Wow, that was embarrassing and unplanned. What can you do, though. Blogging is a big commitment, but my wife is a priority. I’m sure you understand. Anyway, this next election cycle is very likely the most important many of us will ever live through. The stakes couldn’t be higher. But in the end, will it really even matter who wins? Because …

Crap, hold on.

Mom, how are you? Yeah, I’m good. Just writing a blog post to these fine, upstanding folks. … Yeah, I know Dad wouldn’t like it. Well, maybe someday I can convince him to see the light. Yeah, I know he didn’t much like the post “To Save America We Need the Black Death.” I know. But lots of other people seemed to like it, and honestly, I’m pretty sure it saved lives. I stood tall and proud. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. I will. Yeah. Ok, Mom, I gotta run. Writing a blog post and all. I love you, too. I’ll call this weekend. Bye bye. Love you.

Again, I’m really sorry. But, you know, that was my Mom, and who can turn down a phone call from their mom? Yeah, I know, it’s sappy, but really, that’s who I am. Just a normal guy who loves his wife and Mom. Let’s see if we can get back to the point.

This next election cycle is very likely…. Oh, I covered that? Sec … Ok, here we go. …

In the end, however, is anyone else catching on to the idea that having just a two-party system is for the birds? The fascist, fascist birds? We are a nation in need of change. Big change I tell you. Now, your knee-jerk reaction will be to call me a radical, but lets think this through - are we willing to make the changes needed so that we can be the country our founders wanted us to be. Are we willing to fight …

Sec. Phone again.

“Afonso! What’s up dog? …”

–WKW

“It is critical that we, as a democratic nation, pay close attention to traditional Fourth Amendment principles. The Fourth Amendment has served this nation well for 220 years, through many other perils.”

– Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in her 44-page decision which ruled two provisions of the Patriot Act unconstitutional.

–WKW

Like most everyone who isn’t from Texas, I was absolutely thrilled to learn about the Geostationary Banana Over Texas.

Yes, folks, in Oct. 2008, Texans will take some time off from killing its inmates to look skyward to see one big-ass banana.

Meant to be artistic commentary on the state of American politics and devised by Montreal artist César Saez, the banana will be a 1,000 foot helium blimp that Saez and crew hope to put into a low Earth orbit - between 100,000 to 160,000 feet -over Texas.

“I see Texas like a crossroads of important social and cultural happenings in the states and in the world,” Saez said.

The cost of the project is $1 million, but Saez has done well getting donors, including a $15,000 grand from the Canada Council of Arts.

Thus far, the project is sailing smoothly toward liftoff. Texas residents have seemed a bit perturbed over having a large banana hovering over them, however, many are much happier over this than the last stunt the Lone Star State produced - the Geostationary Bush Over A Dog’s Ass.

–WKW (With thanks to Melissa for the graphic)

When fashion designer Marc Ecko purchased the ball Barry Bonds hit for his record-breaking 756th home run, he created an online poll and let the public decide what he should do with the ball he bought for more than $750,000.

The end result - Ecko will mark the ball with a large asterisk then send it to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame. The asterisk is a sign of protest by the many fans who believe Bonds’ achievement is tainted due to rumors and allegations of steroid abuse by the San Francisco Giants slugger.

This idea appears to be have crossed over, as now a historic document appears ready to go through the same treatment.

H. Ross Perot, billionaire and former candidate for President, has announced he will auction off his copy of the Magna Carta. The 13th century document, which was on display at the National Archives in Washington for more than 20 years.

The document explicitly protected certain rights of the king’s subjects — most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, meaning that they had rights against unlawful imprisonment.

The copy is expected to fetch a price of up to $30 million at auction. Nonetheless, several potential buyers have come forward saying they plan on “Bondsifying” the document with a large asterisk before donating it back to the National Archives.

“Being that Habeas Corpus is essentially meaningless in the U.S., so is the Magna Carta, really,” said one anonymous potential buyer. “It really needs an asterisk so everyone knows it’s not something we take seriously anymore.”

Other potential buyers have added that they’d like to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution, as well, and mark it with an asterisk.

“If you’re going to privatize everything, you may as well sell the Constitution, also,” said one anonymous billionaire buyer. “I mean, obviously it’s been sold out from under us figuratively, so why not literally? It would be perfect for an asterisk. Aside from that part about quartering soldiers, it’s become a pretty quaint old document, wouldn’t you say?”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, by all accounts, a religious extremist, a criminal, and a man who loves to agitate. Of course, the same is said of George W. Bush, and I’d prefer that he wasn’t introduced to audiences at major universities as a “cruel and petty dictator.”

Iranians hold their own president in about as high a regard as Americans hold theirs, on average. And, like Americas, Iranians actually notice when the leader of their nation is ridiculed publicly by people who should know better. They’re funny like that.

“Iranians decry harsh words for president”

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranians expressed dismay Tuesday at the tough reception given to their president in New York, saying his host was rude and only fueled the image of the United States as a bully.

The scenes at Monday’s question-and-answer session at Columbia University and the outpouring of venom toward President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by protesters during his U.S. visit could bolster the hard-line leader at a time of high tensions with Washington.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s statement — including telling Ahmadinejad that he resembles a “petty and cruel dictator” — offended Iranians on many levels, not least that of simple hospitality. In traditions of the region, a host should be polite to a guest, no matter what he thinks of him.

The chancellors of seven Iranian universities issued a letter to Bollinger saying his “insult, in a scholarly atmosphere, to the president of a country with … a recorded history of 7,000 years of civilization and culture is deeply shameful.”

They invited Bollinger to Iran, adding, “You can be assured that Iranians are very polite and hospitable toward their guests.”

Why do some Americans think that acting like a childish bully is proper behavior? How did that become a national stereotype? Being narcissistic and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

–WKW

Let me start this by saying that I have an extremely high regard for Oprah Winfrey. She is a rare talent, indeed, and has captivated audiences on her show for decades, and has also shown herself to be an accomplished actress and a willing and prodigious philanthropist. That she has risen to dizzying heights shows that she is not just talented, but also tenacious and with amazing business savvy. There’s a lot to respect and like about Oprah Winfrey.

Except for her penchant to glamorize pseudoscience.

Oprah has literally spent hours and hours telling her viewers about the wondrous abilities of such things as The Secret. What is the real Secret? How Rhonda Byrne managed to get Oprah Winfrey to hock her snake oil in front of 20 million viewers.

That “The Secret” is pseudoscientific nonsense goes without saying. At least it should. But with Oprah pushing it, Byrne and her band of new age profiteers are making money hand over fist while Joe and Jane Sucker are at home wondering why they can’t seem to be able to wish for that Ferrari. Luckily, there are literally thousands of Web sites that easily debunk “The Secret’s” nonsense, but all of them combined likely don’t get the viewership of one segment of Oprah.

Lately, Oprah has fallen in love with Dr. Mehmet Oz (”America’s doctor”). Much like “The Secret,” Dr. Oz is brimming with positivity as he talks about his intricate theories on losing weight (Buy his book “YOU: On a Diet”!). Through it all wildly cheerful Dr. Oz also happily dabbles in pseudoscience himself.

Dr. Oz’s book “Healing from the Heart” is dedicated to advancing beliefs in acupuncture and homeopathy, among other things.

At his NeuroLogica Blog, Dr. Steven Novella, a neurosurgeon and host of the popular podcast “Skeptics Guide to the Universe,” takes Dr. Oz to task for sounding exactly like every other pseudoscientist that has come around the bend:

[Dr. Oz] also says:

“It’s just that if we’re truly going to achieve maximum healing, maximum impact, we ought to take any tool that’s at our disposal, and that includes nonscientific approaches, as long as we have evidence that they don’t hurt the patients.”

The inherent self-contradiction was apparently not evident to Dr. Oz. How can you have evidence of safety if the approach is nonscientific? Evaluating evidence is a scientific endeavor. He is also assuming that at least some nonscientific approaches are effective, but again how will we know this without looking at the evidence? Once you are considering evidence, then you are doing science and the only question is - are you doing good science or bad science? Dr. Oz and other integrative proponents would have us rely upon bad science, as long as we call it something else (i.e. “alternative”).

This is the core insanity of the CAM/integrative movement. They make many flowery statements about spirituality, energy, being open, respecting other cultures, etc. but when it comes down to it the only thing that matters is this: does the treatment work and is it safe. The only way to know is to do careful observations under controlled conditions and systematically evaluate the results (by the way, we call that doing science). They either do not understand what science is or pretend not to, or they simply ignore the fact that a “nonscientific approach” means that you are making poor observations, using logical fallacies, cherry picking the evidence, or committing other intellectual errors. Science is not an aesthetic choice, a philosophy, or a cultural construct - it is simply using valid logic and careful and systematic observation to test claims and ideas. Therefore a nonscientific approach does not do those things.

So in the end, despite his compelling stories and feel-good philosophy, Dr. Oz is advocating that doctors use treatments based upon sloppy reasoning and poor evidence. It really comes down to that. Everything else is an elaborate distraction.

In the end, those like Dr. Oz and Rhonda Byrne can package up whatever nonsense they like and sell it to whomever they wish, for the most part (see: Trudeau, Kevin). There will always be such snake-oil sales people.

Which is the problem I have with Oprah. If there’s one person in the media that I truly believe has a fundamental caring for her viewers, it’s Oprah. No one is that good an actress, or could be one for so long. She really does care about people. Which makes her support of such wasteful nonsense as “The Secret” more upsetting. Or her support of doctors who will dabble in the non-scientific, which not only can hurt a person’s pocketbook, but a person’s person, as well.

In the end, it’s Oprah’s show and she can promote anyone she likes. But what she needs to do is to have skeptics on the show offering the other side. Because by glamorizing pseudoscience, Oprah Winfrey is not helping her viewers one bit, but doing the complete opposite, and helping form a society that is completely detached from reality.

–WKW

During Monday Night Football, which featured Tennessee at New Orleans, sideline reporter Suzy Kolber spent a good chunk of her evening discussing the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

During one such segment, Kolber said she had spoken to a top administrator at FEMA. Kolber paraphrased the administrator, saying, in effect that they were impressed they were as far along as they were, they never have had to rebuild a city before, and that they should expect the process to take 20-30 years.

If there’s one thing the U.S. government understands, it’s how to get a message across and who to get it across to. Now, the vast majority of MNF viewers will figure that these things take time. Three decades worth of time.

Because, like everything else, they never imagined anything like that could have happened.

President George W; Bush, knowing his support will be the death of a GOP candidate, has decided the best way to help his beloved party will be to start endorsing Democrats.

“Bush says Clinton will be Dem nominee”

WASHINGTON - President Bush, breaking his rule not to talk about presidential politics, says he believes Hillary Rodham Clinton will defeat Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries. Bush also predicts that Clinton will be defeated in the general election by the Republican nominee.
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“I believe our candidate can beat her but it’s going to be a tough race,” the president said.

It has been difficult for Bush to remain silent about the 2008 president race, despite his promises not to be the “prognosticator in chief.” He has been talking about the race and handicapping candidates during off-the-record chats with visitors to the White House.

He finally went public with his Clinton prediction in an interview for a book by Bill Sammon, a reporter for The Washington Examiner.

“She’s got a great national presence and this is becoming a national primary,” Bush told Sammon. “And therefore the person with the national presence, who has got the ability to raise enough money to sustain an effort in a multiplicity of sites, has got a good chance to be nominated.”

Well, if Bush supports Hillary Clinton than there’s no way I can support her in the … waaaaiiiitttt a minute. I see what you’re doing. You crafty bastard. You stop that reverse psychology stuff, Mr. President, and get back to listening to Podhoretz beg you to bomb the hell out of Iran.

–WKW