Humodour

Thanks for stating the obvious. You're an absolute gem. Anyway, *bump* to increase visibility to devs.

My original intention was actually to point out that Christian churches in general do this, and singling out the Catholic church seems spiteful. But then I forgot why I was posting.

Yeah, I mean, they're just a cardinal and archbishop, which are just the second- and third-highest offices in the main Catholic Church. Okay, I re-read it. Did I miss the part where the Church decided that safe sex was A-OK? So? If the Catholic Church told all its members to kill themselves, would that be OK because most of them won't? a) Cardinals and Archbishops are actually fairly common. To try and pin the comments of one Cardinal and one Archbishop on all Cardinals and all Archbishops, or the Catholic Church in general, is disingenuous. b) You missed the part where a lot of Catholics in Africa teach contraception methods. c) I imagine it would be as dreadful as if any other church told its members to kill themselves?

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo: “In the case of the AIDS virus, which is around 450 times smaller than the sperm cell, the condom’s latex material obviously gives much less security... to talk of condoms as ‘safe sex’ is a form of Russian roulette.” (Source) Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio: "Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," (Source) And, of course, it's official catholic church policy that contraception is immoral (Source) Two Catholic priests out of how many Christian preachers in Africa? If you're trying to provide some evidence of widespread and systemic misinformation about contraception on the part of the Catholic church, you failed. I also advise you to fully read the article you linked to. This one: http://www.catholic.org/international/inte...ry.php?id=19561 Edit: The Vatican could do a hell of a lot more to promote safe sex and thus radically reduce HIV rates in some parts of Africa, where Catholicism is prevalent over Protestantism or Islam, but to condemn an entire religion because of this is silly. In the first place, something like 90% of Western Catholics use condoms.

Here's some info about Amnesty International and the Catholic Church - as for the other issue I'll look into it and see if I can find some sources for you. A.I. vs. C.C. Links: http://www.amnesty.org.au/svaw/comments/2420/ http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07073102.html http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/ite..._international/ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/po...hts-461358.html Those links are about abortion, not contraception. Was your original claim meant to say abortion instead of contraception? And I am primarily interested in your other claims, since I don't care which charity people donate to; there's a massive degree of choice in that arena.

Like spreading misinformation about condoms and AIDs/HIV in Africa and asking Catholics to not give to institutions such as Amnesty International because they, the NGOs, support the use of contraceptives? Sorry, but until they reign in their missionaries and officials I'm not going to be singing praise about their "efforts." Care to provide some unbiased sources?

To be honest I think you've got more hope of the passive secularisation of Islamic countries over time than you do a reformation. Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey would be good examples of various stages of such a force. I disagree with your assertion that religion is a part of human nature, but fundamentally you're right in that humanity needs something that builds a sense of community. I just disagree that such a thing needs to be religion (although it certainly can be).

I should probably add that, as someone who studies and teaches History and world religion every day, I find most religions to be beautiful. I am fascinated by them all. That's why I enjoy my job. I'm not committed to any specific religion myself though. I find Islam to be often vindicative and vengeful if we go purely by their holy book and hadiths. Which isn't unique to them (see Judaism and Christianity), but I get the feeling they take such scriptures more to heart (e.g. the widespread adoption of Shari'a in many Muslims countries). I'm a fan of Alevism, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevi (Although lol @ Morgoth's fear of Turks. They'd have to be just about the most progressive and secular bunch of Muslims you're ever going to find.)

Same. Holy ****. Try to log in and see if it says you are not authorised. That means it's pending confirmation. You can PM people in the meantime. Missy is slow.

I always heard that having tightly controlled reqs is actually a boon to game makers. One major reason consoles are appealing. The reason not to produce games for Mac pretty much went completely out the window when they switched to x86 architecture, no? WINE works pretty well, but some testing on the dev side before shipping (or a patch afterwards) would do a world of good.

Healthcare in America really isn't that spectacular. It's about equal to that of Cuba. That ought to really rile you. Although admittedly Cuba has excellent healthcare - about the only thing it does well. What needs to be reformed is the socioeconomic gaps present in America's health insurance.

It's not really terribly important what we think in the West. It's what they think in Kashmir, Pakistan and India that's important. And unfortunately, we don't have much of a say in that. And unfortunately, Muslims don't do anywhere near as much as they could to stand up and denounce these type of people. It's usually a once-off tentative speech about how things like this are 'un-Islamic' and then nothing till the next attack where they do it all over again. They need to be actively campaigning in some capacity against terrorism, and aggressively teaching their youth the evils of it, instead of all too often silently and passively supporting it in the home or church as some sort of 'resistance fighting'. I am rather disheartened though, when I see left-wing nutters in Australia, who support Hamas and Hezbollah through some twisted and misguided form of pity, who are claiming these attacks are a 'justified form of resistance against oppression'. Total arseholes.

Coulter and Limbaugh are fairly bat**** and I'm frankly (ehe) surprised to see Aristes try and tie Franken to them.

I suppose if I looked at it as a comic superhero series it'd be a little different, but they really don't bill the series like that (those weird weekly cartoons aside). I wasn't a comic fan though. Comics are a wee bit old for my time.

Fair enough Tep. But wtf, a solar eclipse gives people genetic mutations now? Oh geez, I'm glad I dumped this POS.

Harper is totally boned. The Greens just backed the Liberal-NDP Coalition and the Governor General just cut short her Europe trip to return to Canada: "The prime minister and myself need to have a conversation... I have to see what the prime minister has to say to me and what he is actually thinking of doing."

Hey, Solo. I made a thread here asking the devs about this, but nobody responded. I sincerely hope at least somebody at Obsidian gives it some thought, even if it's just a bored junior programmer who does some retrofitting, because there's probably at least 10 people there who use Linux in some form. Edit: In other news, Microsoft's market share continues to fall - now 1 in 10 people don't use any form of Windows. http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/12/02/1857253.shtml

Is this show now less crap than it was in season 1 and early season 2 (I stopped at like episode 6 or something)?

Canada and Australia are de facto republics anyway. Perhaps the one real change that has some validity is making the Governor General elected by a 2/3rds majority of parliament rather than appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. But until a crisis arises where the Governor General acts undemocratically, a change like that isn't going to happen. Canadians and Australians like their status quo.

that's what he said while he was running. now that it's this close, pressure will be on to conform to his party. either way, "corruption reform" is immaterial, immigration reform won't go over with voters, and, as the dems learned in '94, healthcare reform may be a priority, but not if it requires tax increases. Nah, McCain met Obama after the election and talked to him about what he would work with the Democrats on. Meshugger: Franken's a Democrat many Republicans dislike because he's conspicuously left-wing rather than centrist. I'm fairly neutral on him. I don't like Norm Coleman though. He wants to make it so all US states ban gay marriage at a federal level.

He didn't really. Cloture doesn't require a Democrat supermajority; it requires a Senate supermajority. John McCain has already said he'll vote with the Democrats on a bunch of things like corruption reform, immigration reform, and from memory healthcare reform. Obviously he'll also have significant input into shaping these policies (relative to the fact he's just one senator), but it just goes to show that 60 Senate seats isn't as hard as some people think. The far more interesting race is Franken vs whatshisface. That's pretty much a dead tie right now (due to so many frivolously challenged ballots).

Let me put it this way: The Governor General only acts when the democratically elected parliament democratically votes to democratically dissolve the government (via no confidence). Then, the Governor General elects the majority party or coalition to form government (the hallmark of democracy) or calls a new democratic election. The Governor General might not be democratically elected, but he's also more of a political process than an independent agent. I imagine it's similar in Canada. Now, if you think this is undemocratic, Volo, you should start a grassroots effort to call a referendum to get Canadian citizens to democratically decide to become a Republic and abolish the monarchy.

I've already explained previously why it most certainly is democratic, if slightly annoying for those who voted just 6 months ago. Anyway, that quote was a reference to your rants about being slaves to the British Monarch, not the vote of no confidence.

Only 37% of the Canadian voters elected the Conservative party. That says to me that more than 60% of people did not want a Conservative government. As such, any coalition between those parties which 60% of people voted for seems quite fair, and specifically democratic, to me. The rest of your post devolved into incomprehensible ranting, so I can't understand it to respond to it, sorry.