The Pope with a rap sheet?

Someone just filed criminal charges on the Pope.

MANILA, Philippines -- A lawyer filed on Tuesday a criminal complaint before the Manila prosecutor's office accusing Pope Benedict XVI and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of human rights violations, including alleged disturbance of public order, swindling and teaching immoral doctrines.

Elly Pamatong claimed the Pope and Rosales "have been arrogantly, oppressively and offensively mounting loudspeakers on church rooftops, towers, belfries and trees that are blaring with monotonous false dogmas and doctrines."

"They have been disturbing the peace and quiet of non-Catholics throughout the country," he said in his complaint.

Among others things, Pamatong wants the court to rule that those who will not respect the rights of non-Catholics to live in peace "be deported to the Vatican and forever barred from entering the country."

However, I don't know if this is the same Ely Pamatong as the infamous Spike Boy, who wreaked havoc on EDSA last June 2004. If he's one and the same, he has no right to complain about "disturbing the peace". Can't say I don't agree with him on the "monotonous false dogmas and doctrines" thing, though.

"Science leads to killing people" - Ben Stein

What a sorry excuse for a human being. Ben Stein = BS.

Hypocrisy rears it's ugly head again

From an article in the Inquirer:

“For an official of the Roman Catholic Church, the commission of a homosexual act is the real issue behind the rectal surgery in Cebu City that exploded into a scandal on YouTube.

Msgr. Achilles Dakay, spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Cebu, Wednesday said the doctors and nurses who had made fun of an anesthetized male patient in the operation room of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) and uploaded a video of the surgery on YouTube should not be blamed solely for the scandal.

“We are asking everyone not to forget or to bypass the main issue: the wrong act of a guy with another man,” Dakay said in an interview over the Church-run Radio Veritas. “People are not talking about what happened before the operation—the homosexual act that was done very badly.”

A homosexual act done badly? I suppose a priest would know how to do it correctly. Their kind have had plenty of experience with little boys.

Mr. Dakay (I won't call you monsignor because it means nothing to me), that is not the real issue here. Granted, what the patient did was disturbing to say the least, and allowing someone to shove something up your ass is pretty stupid, but THAT'S NOT THE REAL ISSUE HERE. The issue was that the doctors disrespected the privacy rights of the patient. Does it matter that it was the result of a homosexual act? If he was the victim of a car crash, would it then be acceptable to upload the video on Youtube?

Mr. Dakay, I would suggest you focus your energies on what goes on behind the curtains in your own organization. You'll find plenty to be disappointed about there.

Silly Signs #1

U-turn?? Or No U-Turn???

Expelled Exposed

The most recent anti-science, anti-evolution attempt by the horribly misnamed Discovery Institute is a trashbag of a movie called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. For those who do not know, The Discovery Institute is an organization in the U.S. that aims to further fundamentalist religious propaganda, more specifically, Creationism.

The deception and dishonesty starts even BEFORE the movie was being produced. First it sets up a shell company called Rampant Films to hide the real company behind it, Premise Media. Then they proceed to lie to the scientists they wanted to interview for the movie, saying that the movie was entitled "Crossroads", and that it was an unbiased look at evolution and creationism. They later claim that it was during filming that they changed the title of the movie. However, when the website of Expelled went up, it was found that they registered for the url MONTHS before they started interviewing the scientists. I guess lying and deceiving are sins unless they are done in Jesus' name huh?

What's even worse, they EXPELLED biologist and Intelligent Design critic PZ Myers (who was one of the scientists duped for an interview in the movie) from attending one of their screenings in Minnesota. The film does all it can to appeal to free speech, freedom to dissent, and freedom of thought (yeah religion sure values those things). How ironic then, that they go through every effort to keep critics out of any public screenings; and they suck at it too!

The movie was chockfull of logical fallacies, disinformation, and just plain bad taste. It was so bad, they had to PAY people to watch it! Rumor has it though, that they've already started on a sequel. :)

Lies, damn lies, and marketing

Younger cells, younger you???


Enhances normal cell regeneration? What the heck does that mean? Do they make you renew your cells faster? That would be the most likely conclusion because they claim to make your cells "younger". That would mean that your cells will die younger, and the telomeres at the ends of your DNA shortens faster too. In the end, that would also mean that YOU WILL DIE YOUNGER TOO.

Of course, this is all bullcrap. You won't really die early by taking this product, because vitamins and minerals won't do squat to "enhance normal cell regeneration". All it does is make your piss more expensive.

This just illustrates that the majority of advertising will say ANYTHING to sell you a product. Never mind that what they claimed, if true, will end up killing you faster. Whatever happened to "Truth in Advertising"?

What's even worse is that they copied the name of a parody medicine for a parody disorder.

Another example of crappy journalism

Another prime example of how the media loves to jump on the bandwagon without doing much research.

Supposedly, a 13 year old German boy calculated that there is a 1-in-450 chance of Apophis, an asteroid, hitting Earth in 2036, as opposed to NASA's 1-in-45,000. Supposedly, NASA has corresponded with this boy and has revised their calculations because he was right.

Turns out, it wasn't true.

It's a sad case of very bad sensational journalism. I mean, how hard is it to pick up a phone and call NASA to verify these claims??? Just shows how the media would do anything to sell a story. We all love these David and Goliath stories, of how a 13 year old boy trumps nerdy scientists and big bad government, but the truth is, it doesn't really happen.

Even worse, they're acting like this was a prediction of a doomsday scenario. Sure 1-in-450 sounds so scary compared to 1-in-45,000, but if your doctor told you that you only have a 1-in-450 chance of living past tomorrow, would you jump for joy? 1-in-450 translates to 0.002%! That's a tiny TINY fraction! It's the same as the percentage of effort used by the media to check the veracity of their reports.