I am sitting on the campus of the University of Minnesota and am very appreciative of the many pretty girls walking by. I’ve always liked pretty girls, of course, but I have found my tastes broadenly considerably as I get older. I appreciate a wide range of beauty these days. When I was young for some reason I was always focused on the very prettiest and for some reason now the overtly beautiful are less interesting to me. There are so many beautiful people and it is just fun to apprecaite the diversity.

Hey, all you youngens out there — go to college! You go for the beautiful women (and men) and you stay for the education. The math is not too difficult on this…

Sorry for the inflamatory title, but Violet Socks points outs:

Actually there’s a rumor afloat that the Vatican may be about to drop its absolute prohibition on condoms and allow their use for AIDS prevention — but only for AIDS prevention; certainly not for contraception. The Vatican health minister says this is a “very difficult and delicate topic.” Think about that. The Church claims to be the moral arbiter for a large percentage of the world’s population. There’s a little latex thingy that can prevent the spread of a horrific disease that kills millions, destroys lives, leaves children orphaned — and this is a tough call for them.

This is one of the dumbest positions the Catholic Church has ever taken, and we have a lot to choose from! C’mon, Catholics, get rid of this ridiculous notion that there is something immoral about birth control. The fact of the matter is, there is something deeply immoral about giving people any reason to not protect themselves from STD’s with condoms.

Let’s compare and contrast: prevented unwanted conception vs. people DYING FROM FUCKING AIDS. The Pope is dumb.

This Purity Ball shit is pretty horrifying. I have no idea how common such a thing is. To echo many of the interesting thoughts in the comments on the post linked above, it is bizarre in 2 ways and brings up at least 1 significant social issue.

It’s bizarre because discussing sex with such very young children and linking it to their father is weird. I expect parental guidance in regards to young women’s sexuality to come primarily from their mothers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an advocate of fatherly involvement as well, but to pledge to your dad that you’ll save yourself for marriage when you are 4 years old (or 8 years old for that matter) is weird.

The other reason it is bizarre is that most of us had sex before marriage. I personally seemed to have lived through it. It looks like you did too. I want my kids to make good, safe decisions about sex. But I’d never be so ignorant as to think that I could or should brainwash them to my point of view, whatever my point of view may be. All parents know, you can’t make all the decisions for your kid but you can give them a moral and rational basis on which to base their decisions. This leads to the social issue.

What responsibility, if any, does the State have in making sure kids get an education that includes secular morality and plan ol’ rationality? What is the difference between teaching and brainwashing? If I teach my kid to think for himself am I “brainwashing” him into that attitude? If I raise my kid in a godless home, am I “brainwashing” him to that point of view? How about a Christian who raises their kid that drinking, sex and rock-n-roll are sins? Is that brainwashing?

I would argue that teaching is when you help develop skills of independent and rational thinking which can be used to create personal opinions of god, sex, drinking, etc. Brainwashing is imposing a predefined opinion.

This Purity Ball stuff seems to me like the latter.

I sometimes wish I believed in Hell just so people like Herbert Chalmers Jr. could rot in eternal torture. Apparently he didn’t read my previous plea that losers like him just shoot themselves first and save us all a bunch of trouble.

It also seems a bit odd that Walmart sold him ammo even as he bragged that he was going to kill his boss. They did call the cops, which is good. Too bad they sold him the ammo.

I absolutely deplore this sort of lame shit. Getting fired, even unfairly, is not something that entitles you to kill people. We all agree that is obvious. How do retarded morons like Herbert Chalmers Jr. even get this far in life? You’d think Darwin would take out scum like this before they had a chance to reproduce.

Holy crap, what a bunch of bullshit.

GOP official convicted in phone jamming case made numerous calls to White House

Here is a documented example of Republican dirty tricks, all the while they are making phone calls to the White House!

Crooks!

I don’t know who leaked the information, for starters. So it’s hard for me to answer that question until I find out the truth. – George W. Bush, October 6, 2003

Umm…guess we know what the truth is now. Bush is a liar.

My crackpot theory is that Bush ordered the leak and then declassified it after the fact to cover his ass. They’d rather deal with this issue than that.

Ol’ PZ hit one on the head again in this post:

Do you even understand the argument? I’m not saying that we need to preserve the snail darter because it is a valuable organism in and of itself, but because we are screwing over ourselves when we smash and poison our environment to such a degree that as innocuous a creature as a small fish is unable to survive. I’m being greedy, not altruistic. It’s a position both sides ought to understand.

It hurts human beings when you put humans beings “first” and trample the environment. The human race depends on our god damn biosphere. How hard is that to understand? When the environment can’t support small, sensitive creatures, it is a canary in a coal mine. If you think the environment is an issue of the Left, you are part of the problem.

…is fucking Christian judges thinking they know what is best for my child.

I have an idea I’d like to share with all you evangelicals — you raise your kid how you want to and I’ll raise my kid how I want to. So you can teach them that the earth is 6,000 years old, the God zapped anatomically modern humans into existence with a snap of his fingers, that the Grand Canyon was created after Noah’s flood and that dinosaurs are a trick God played on us to test our faith. Turn them into science-illiterate, war-mongering, fag-hating ignorant fucks. That is your right. Meanwhile people like Ms. Bevilacqua and myself may raise our kids to be so open minded that you think they are weird. OK. Fine. Fair enough. You leave my kids alone and I’ll leave your kids alone. Thank you.