Finally, the greatest source of shame for India’s men is addressed!
The only question now is, who’s gonna be caught buying THESE?
News of the Restless A door at the end of a dead-end street…
Someone needs to say a few Hail Marys
December 31, 2006 — Sabina BeckerAnd while they’re at it, they need to stop getting priests to lie for them.
Try to imagine Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, dressed up as a bishop — the head bishop — of his own state-sponsored church.
According to media reports coming out of Latin America, President Chavez is considering a proposal that would establish him as the high priest of his own form of evangelical Christianity, convert his cabinet members into bishops of a lower rank, and submit church activities to the civil and military power of his government.
It is still unclear who is behind the proposal. Publicly, it has taken the form of a petition by leaders of "Centro Cristiano de Salvación" (Christian Center of Salvation). The association claims to represent 17,000 evangelical churches and 5,000,000 Venezuelans. Their request is simple: make their denomination the country’s official religion, teach it in all public schools and pay the pastors from government coffers. In turn, they will make Chavez their head bishop and promise to submit absolutely to his authority.
This just in…
December 29, 2006 — Sabina BeckerQuotable: Henry Kissinger and Lily Tomlin on power as an aphrodisiac
December 29, 2006 — Sabina Becker“Power is the best aphrodisiac.” –Henry Kissinger
“Just look at the carpet-bombing of Cambodia to see what it took for him to get it up…” –Lily Tomlin
(What a pity Viagra was not on the market yet during those days. Could have saved the old boy so much trouble.)
Festive Left Friday Blogging: RCTV’s number is up!
December 29, 2006 — Sabina Becker
Video, courtesy of Aporrea and VTV (the Venezuelan government channel.)
Here, Chavecito addresses a military gathering about the fact that coup-supporting channel RCTV (Radio Caracas Television) is facing loss of its broadcast licence for its role in the coup of 2002. (Story here.)
Scary Thought #5: This is really not much of a joke.
December 26, 2006 — Sabina Becker
I guess I’m bound for a long and healthy life…
December 26, 2006 — Sabina Becker…and all for exercising my reproductive autonomy so effectively that I’ve never been pregnant. From the Beeb:
US researchers looked at 21,000 couples living in Utah between 1860 and 1985, who bore a total of 174,000 children.
[...]
The researchers, from the University of Utah, analysed nineteenth century data from the Utah Population Database.
They found that the couples had an average of eight children each, but family size ranged from one to 14 or more children.
The data showed that the more children a couple produced, the higher their risk of early death.
A posthumous “fuck you” to Pinochet
December 26, 2006 — Sabina BeckerFrom the bottom of Chileans’ hearts, or the hearts of their bottoms, comes the following magnificent salute to a dearly departed dictator (translation mine; original in Spanish at Aporrea.org):
Diverse Chilean political sectors today rejected the letter in which the deceased ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet attempted to justify the military coup of 1973 and the human-rights violations commited under his rule.
Leaders of the governing coalition and the rightist opposition showed similar opinions, with nuances, referring to the legacy of the dictatorship in point of human rights. There were more than 3000 victims.
Quotable: Tommy Douglas on internal espionage
December 25, 2006 — Sabina Becker“Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom.”
–Tommy Douglas, Greatest Canadian and victim of RCMP spying
Merry Christmas, Baghdad…
December 25, 2006 — Sabina BeckerThe spirit of Christmas is still alive in Iraq, but it’s tucked away behind the closed doors of Christian families, who represent about three percent of Iraq’s 26 million people.
Most of the fighting in Iraq involves Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but Christians have also become targets. Church bombings and other sectarian attacks spiked amid a wave of anti-Christian anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI in September that seemed to link the prophet Muhammad’s teachings to violence.
In October, a priest in the northern city of Mosul was kidnapped by a group demanding that he retract the pope’s statements. He was eventually found beheaded.
