Why is the Vatican angry with Ireland?

"SO, ROME is miffed at “excessive reactions” in Ireland following publication of the Cloyne report. This State has spent millions unearthing what has been available to Rome all along. In October 2005, there was the Ferns report, costs to date: €2.3 million.

In May 2009, the Ryan report, estimated costs to date: at least €126 million. In November 2009, the Dublin report: costs to date €3.6 million. In July 2011, the Cloyne report: costs to date €1.9 million. Total costs so far of the four statutory inquiries? €133.8 million [US $190 million], with more to come.

None of this would have been necessary had the Catholic Church here and in Rome co-operated fully in establishing the truth. Instead, those that could be were dragged, kicking and screaming, into disclosing what they desperately wanted to keep hidden."

Read the whole thing here.

Quote of the day

"I fear that those of us who stand up in front of America’s children every day have made a Faustian bargain. In accepting history courses shaped by war and structured around war, we allow our students to internalize war as normal, constant, at times attractive. In telling stories about war, we fall back on noble explanatory devices and encourage our students to appreciate high moral outcomes over bodies on the ground." -- Dwight Simon

BC mayors can't agree on TransLink funding

BC mayors agree on one thing: TransLink’s two week period for input in July wasn't enough, and TransLink must give the public more of a chance to respond to a new funding plan that includes an extra two cents per litre in gas taxes.  However, mayors remain divided on TransLink's proposal for paying for new transit projects.

Vancouver mayor Gregor "Extreme Green" Robertson and Surrey's Diane Watts support the plan, while the mayors of Burnaby, Delta, and Richmond are among its strongest opponents.  If this proposal fails, The Globe and Mail notes, "it will be the latest in a long string of failed efforts over the past two years to find a solution to TransLink’s $400-million share for the long-awaited Evergreen line to serve the region’s northeast cities – and ultimately, to find a formula for paying for future transit projects."

Besides the new gas tax, which would see Lower Mainlanders paying 17 cents per litre in local taxes alone on gas, TransLink is also pushing for extra property taxes.  The plan would only cover new projects, and would require the provincial government to pony up additional funding as well, potentially leaving mayors on the hook if the government doesn't come through.

Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan, who leads a group of mayors opposed to the plan, said he will never support the TransLink supplement: TransLink is continually forcing local taxpayers to pay extra taxes because its board and bureaucrats make all the decisions about what will be included in the base budget and then go to local politicians for extra money.  According to Corrigan, mayors have no say in the choices the TransLink board makes, and TransLink has many times spent money in its base budget on things the mayors would never agree to fund through taxes if they had a say.

TransLink is known for forcing stupid and widely hated policies on its users, for mismanaging money, and for then coming up with loony ideas for raising more of it, leading Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to call it a "disaster circus."

Anti-gay group calls gays Nazis

Is this starting to sound familiar?

In a post on OneNewsNow, a "news" site run by homophobic hate group the American Family Association on August 1, Becky Yeh writes:

"Goal: Bringing end to Gov. Brown's 'Nazi state'"

Regular readers of this blog will recall that this is the third incident in as many weeks in which gays have been compared to Nazis. 

The article concerns efforts to reverse a new state law requiring public schools to teach students about LGBT people's contributions to history.  The group must collect 505,000 signatures within 90 days to place the repeal on the ballot for June 2012.

It is worth reposting (again!) the chairman of the Australian Anti-Defamation Commission Anton Block, originally made in response to the Rudd scandal:

"It is completely unacceptable for anyone to co-opt and trivialise the name of . . . the Nazi machinery for their own political purposes. To use [it] in this context shows a level of ignorance and insensitivity that has no place in contemporary political discourse. It is highly offensive."

US hate group's charitable status revoked

According to Ex-Gay Watch, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of US hate group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH, headed by notorious homophobe Peter LaBarbara) in 2010 for failing to file the forms required for review by the IRS and the public.

"While the current incarnation of AFTAH appears to have been active since 2006, we found only one form 990-EZ on file — for the year 2009 (PDF).  In this, total receipts are listed as $110.000, out of which Peter LaBarbera received a salary of $75,000.  For perspective, this is approximately the same salary plus benefits claimed by Exodus president Alan Chambers.  Exodus lists eleven employees and a million dollar budget."

While the donations section of the AFTAH website no longer claims tax-exempt status, as of this posting their About page still claims that donations are tax deductible (see screenshot).

AFTAH is one of a small number of anti-gay organizations classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, due to LaBarbera’s homophobic lies and constant attempts to vilify gays and lesbians.

Quote of the day

"Does Viagra facilitate desire (the view of Pfizer’s scientists), or create it? What is 'natural' in sexual life? If, before the discovery of Viagra, it was 'nature’s course to diminish sexual power in men once their peak reproductive fitness had passed'—as  Sylvanus Stall wrote in a 1901 book—is it 'unnatural' to change that aspect of senior-citizen life through drugs? 

Or is drug-assisted virility simply better living through chemistry—like raising life expectancies from 45 to 75? Is the appropriate meaning of 'natural' not what existed in the past, but anything that can be achieved through physical means at any time? How does one integrate the complaints of older women, documented by studies, about the frequency of desire in Viagra-fueled mates, and the lengthened duration of lovemaking itself?" -- Carlin Romano

Grief bacon

Kummerspeck (German): literally, grief bacon; excess weight gained from emotional overeating.

See 14 others here.

Stephen Colbert on the "Muslim" attack in Norway

Hate group is "alarmed"

Parents’ Voice member Homara Ahmad is "alarmed," according to the hate group's latest press release.  The group was created to oppose the Burnaby School Board's anti-homophobia policy.

According to the release, Parents' Voice members decided to file a freedom of information (FOI) request after reading a story in The Province about a student being bullied because he was skinny:

"Parents’ Voice members wanted to know the extent of the 'bullying' problem: who the perpetrators are--staff or students--and their targets."

It is unclear why Parents' Voice twice decided to use scare quotes around the word "bullying."

Allegedly, group member and spokesperson (they all seem to be spokespeople) Homara Ahmad made an FOI request for "copies of all reports, incidents recorded, and/or complaints made involving students, staff or any other person related to the operation of the Burnaby School District, that has been party to any form of bullying, assault, harassment, verbal abuse or any form of mean-spirited conduct, that has occurred on or near any property owned, managed or operated by School District 41," and demanded an exemption from fees, which was refused, leading the group to lose its collective mind.

Gordon World, another "spokesman," said:

"it seems highly unlikely that the incidents of reported bullying will justify the special attention directed to the political agenda of the sex activists involved in creating Policy 5.45. I believe this last point is the real issue. If the claims of sex activists were true, and a disproportionate number of children were being attacked based on sexual orientation, wouldn't the Burnaby School Board be more than willing to release this information to back up their claim?"

World is known for his outrageous homophobic lies, such as claiming that the murder of Aaron Webster was not an anti-gay hate crime and that gay men are responsible for most HIV infections and have a significantly shorter lifespan.

In another staggering display of homophobia, the press release goes on to add:

"Burnaby trustees, and others in positions of trust, should know better by now than to rely upon data and research generated by homosexual and other sex activists. Our children deserve better than to have policies developed by hyperbolic-spin propaganda, masquerading as research, generated by sex activists who want to promulgate their version of diversity politics and practices among our children, via the public education system. Parents’ Voice is against all forms of child abuse, including bullying, the political sexualization of children and the intellectual abuse of children by indoctrinating them with propaganda that falsely portrays sexual and emotional practices that can and do result in provable harm, as being 'acceptable.'"

Not coincidentally, this hate-filled press release coincides with the Outgames and Vancouver Pride.

Singapore: The Caning Country

Beating with a 1.2-metre, 1.27cm thick rattan cane soaked in water to maximize its weight and make it more flexible. This  punishment is mandated not only by the Singaporean military and court system, but in secondary schools across the nation-state.


Caning is a legal punishment for all males under the age of 50, with a maximum of 24 strokes.  In 2007, 6,404 offenders were sentenced to caning.  Caning is performed on male members of the Singapore Armed Forces, again to a maximum of 24 strokes.   Caning is also used to punish boys in Singaporean schools. In May of 2004, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Acting Minister for Education, encouraged schools to

“punish boys by caning for such offences as fighting, smoking, cheating, gangsterism, disrespect or vandalism.”

Students can receive up to 6 strokes.  According to a survey by The Straits Times, 20 per cent of parents in Singapore use caning for punishment.

Read the whole thing here, and watch the disturbing video below.

X-Ray Specs

Rana el Kaliouby and Rosalind Picard have created special glasses that help the wearer interpret emotional cues.  The glasses use a tiny camera and software that analyses facial expressions.  El Kaliouby began to develop the glasses as an aid for autistic people, who often find it hard to pick up on other people's emotions.  She and fellow Cambridge student Simon Baron-Cohen hired actors to mime expressions, and volunteers to describe their meaning, using the most popular responses.

The glasses' camera tracks 24 "feature points" on your conversation partner's face, and software developed by Picard analyses their expressions.

According to Picard, these glasses could become "augmented-reality glasses, which would overlay computer graphics onto the scene in front of the wearer."

Read the whole fascinating article here.

iPhone app helps you predict which seat will become vacant on the train

 A new iPhone app called Densha de Suwaru (sitting down on the train) by Velc helps you make a database of strangers you commute with regularly.  For every passenger you create a list of features, such as which stations they ride between, at what days and times and on which line, along with gender, age, and other identifying details.  The app allows you to make a cartoon-like image of each of your fellow passengers.

The more data you add, the better you will become at predicting which seated passenger will be the next to leave the train.

In Japan, particularly in Tokyo, where it is not uncommon for people to spend 2 hours or more commuting by train every day, finding a seat is an important concern.  In 2005, a book about how to find seats on packed trains became a best-seller book.

The app can be purchased at the iTunes store, but it is unclear whether it is available in languages other than Japanese.