June 2008
Catholic World Youth Day to be a Gay free zone. →
Organisers of the Catholic World Youth Day, to be held in Sydney, Australia, have prevented a Catholic group from holding a forum about homosexuality as part of the week long festivities (which part of Day don’t they understand?).
The Gay Catholic group Acceptance had been struggling to hold the event and claim that the church’s position will isolate young gay Catholics.
World Youth...
“We are entering a new age, the Post-Peak Oil Age. Now the 100-year folly of...”
– Michael Lardelli, Senior Lecturer in Genetics at the University of Adelaide on Radio National’s Perspective program.
Bad Astronomy Blog: God hates Mars →
I just love this story which the Bad Astronomy team picked up about Rob Hood, a US commentator on The Conservative Voice.
Apparently Mr Hood ( don’t know if he rides through glens or not) thinks that all the money that the US is spending on the Mars Phoenix Lander is a complete and utter waste of taxpayer’s money!
Why? Because we know for a fact that life only exists on Earth, so why...
Dumber than Americans? →
Americans get a lot of crap, I guess it comes with being at the top of the food chain, but in many cases it is unwarranted; ok they can’t be fully trusted because their beer is weak as piss but overall they are decent caring folk.
Question, which is the most obese country in the world. America! Wrong! Australians are more obese!
This “little” fact came out earlier in the week,...
“It is now a truth acknowledged even by science: men like casual sex more than...”
– From here (via gauntlet) (via sarahchristine)
AR:
This doesn’t suprise me from an evolutionary point of view. Up until 1960 or so casual sex for a women would have resulted in a pregnancy, so from a continuation of a species point of view you’d want to check out the qualities of the...
God accused of selling cocaine near Tampa church →
brigno:
crazyflorida:
drex:
Gotta love where I’m from. You can’t make this shit up.
We're toast: NASA expert →
According to a top NASA scientist if we don’t do something significant soon to combat global warming “We’re toast”.
James Hansen told US Congress that we have long passed the “dangerous level” for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and we need to return to 1988 levels.
Hansen who echoes the work of other scientists is not held in high esteem in all circles.
...
How Facebook Works →
This one is for the techies. MIT’s Technology Review takes a brief look at the structure of the systems used to make Facebook “work”.
Condom Protest →
Condoms will be handed out to Catholic pilgrims en-route to the Catholic World Youth Day papal Mass in Sydney, Australia as part of a protest against the Catholic Church’s attitude to homosexuality, contraception and abortion.
The protest group consists of a coalition of religious, atheist, gay and lesbian groups as well as the Raelians.
The Raelian’s are upset because the Pope (the...
Ones not enough. →
Members of Sydney’s Islamic community want polygamous marriages to be recognised. Apparently they beleive this will protect the rights of women.
Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre, claims that while polygamous marriages are illegal they exist in Australia and should be recognised.
He went on to say “It’s a bit hard, very difficult, but unless we face it, how [do]...
“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to...”
– Kurt Vonnegut (via saramcpherson)
Way too easy …
BibleWiki →
The Bible Wiki is a project to build a free user-created commentary to the entire text of the Christian Bible (I’m not sure which one, but it doesn’t seem to read like the St James version).
I hope they make use of the scholarly work over at the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
Islamic group attacks religious tolerance rally. →
A rally by moderate Muslims in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta calling for religious tolerance was attacked by hundreds of members of a more radical Islamic group. Protesters were set upon with batons until about 50 policemen intervened, but no arrests were made.
“Like rush hour but fun.”
– David Mudkips, a 25-year-old computer programmer, on the unofficial Booze Tube party on the London Underground.
France to appeal fake virgin marriage ruling. →
The French government will appeal a high court decision to grant a marriage annulment to a Muslim on the grounds his wife lied about her virginity. Apparently the husband got suspicious of the “essential qualities” of his wife when the sheets weren’t stained with blood after their wedding night.
The Shroud of Turin hoax to be unveiled again. →
The Shroud of Turin a Roman Catholic holy relic, which the Catholic Church claims is the cloth that Jesus Christ was buried in, will again go on display in 2010. The four meter long piece of linen is supposed to have the imprint of Christ’s face on it. The only fly in the ointment is that carbon dating shows that the cloth is at least 1260 years to young to be around during the life/death...
One up for Satan. →
A man jailed for stealing a pet goat and killing it during a satanic ritual on a Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) church altar will be released after successfully appealing his sentence. The appeal judge said that the initial sentence was “excessive” given the man’s remorse and attempts to apologise to the family who owned the goat.