Was The Pope a "sacred cow"?

I'm part Hindu, but I ate some of what he had to say.

Matty: I prefer the logical extension of MLA and APA parenthetical citations, which is to place punctuation belonging to the quote within the quotes, and that belonging to sentence structure outside of the quotes. Eg. Like Alex, were you wondering "Why did I even come here?"?

I think the Pope did enough good works so that we should show him at least a modicum of respect. While I wouldn't go so far as to say he was a "sacred cow", I do think it's disrespectful to make jokes at his expense when he can no longer defend himself.

Uh, yeah, I picked the I'm losing my marbles option.

certainly not. He was the object of criticism all the time. And it wasn't just the libral minded either mind you. If his advice was never taken with a grain of salt, or at least questioned; would we have liberated millions of Iraqies from Saddam and would we have birth control available in nearly every drug store, even in most of the ones in the most conservative redneck towns in the country? To be fair though, yes, there were good reasons against the war in Iraq as well, but you get the point.

As far as sacred cows are concerned, the notion was gone ever since the monarchy was overthrown, and even more destroyed ever since the hypie movement and the war between the left and right winged pundits started. And it pretty much was exterminated by the time South Park started coming out with episodes. Now that we live in a plurastic society, sacred cows now make good for tastey hamburgers.

Allthough some people think of themselves or others as sacred cows, but I think that's more of a narsasism on their part that being the truth.

The man wore a pointy cap, and drove around in the 'Popemobile" what de you think?

It's a great strip too

I think a lot of people are better off now he is dead, especially in the Third World. He was anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-condoms, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia....

He was an anti-christ!

He was catholic. That is what most catholics are taught and believe. The pope being gone does nothing about the millions or billions or practicing catholics carrying this message.

Tell it to Sinead O'Connor (who tore up the Pope's picture on Saturday Night Live many years ago).

> I'm part Hindu, but I ate some of what he had to say.

Oh, wonderful wording there!

To some extent, yes. But there certainly were people who were happy to criticise him. I was one of them.

With luck, a more progresive Pope could be chosen next who could change what the billion Catholics are told to believe.

There are no "sacred cows".

Things were like this long before this last pope was around. I doubt there will be any big changes anytime soon. They interpret the bible and take everything so literally. I doubt catholics would even want a new pope who had radical ideas.

He didn't look like a cow. And he wasn't Hindu, as far as I know.

From what I've read, in some ways he actually took the Catholic Church back towards a more rigid framework.

That could be true. I don't feel like doing any research on the subject. Most Catholics are so brainwashed it will probably take decades or more for changes to happen.

I haven't gone out of my way to research it - for some reason the newspapers keep going on about it...I can't imagine why!

I find the news depressing. I have not been watching or reading any news (if I can help it) so far this year and I am much happier for it. The news tends to focus on the negative aspect of life too much. I am trying to keep it positive

He liked little boys. I saw it on South Park.

For me, that is incredibly messy and hard to follow. I much prefer the APA Succinct rules of punctuation. Plus, it translates almost exactly into most international styleguides for English, not to mentiom the GPO, and makes my life so incredibly easier. When I transfer US documents into UN submissions for rulemaking, or other international correspondence, I do next to nothing to change the format.

It seems MLA and APA strict punctuation have little practical application outside of academia.

I have something else to say about something else, but I don't think now is the time to say it. So let me just say this about that... I was there in 1978 and on live Italian TV, I saw the smoke come out white instead of black. I guess that's the closest to the Pope I can get.

Do you forget that because of him we have female altar servers?

In addition, a few years after, there was a push by the cardinals to renigg it, and he insisted on keeping them.

By your definition I don't think there is anyone, but he was close. Not in my book though!!

Well, whoohoo... altar servers!! I'm sure women all over the world will be sooo grateful for that!!
They deserve equality and thus female priests and cardinals. He did refuse that!

Moo.

I agree, but do you think all those other 80 yo codgers that ore pre-Vatican would be cool with it? How about the 50 yo+ Catholics.

Essentially I see it progressing, baby steps as they say. First altar servers, then deacons, and finally priestesses.

This isn't intended to be sexist, because as I had said, I agree, there is NO difference, but think about this...
... Which is more important of an issue at the moment, people starvig & suffering in third world countries, or getting women in all spiritual roles throughout the Church?

I think there's too much criticism...if you don't like the beliefs of a certain religion, don't join. I disagree with lots of different religions, that's why I don't have one.

I'm losing my marbles.

I do my own thing, that which seems most logical. Even the academic citations are a hybridization of source punctuation and carrier punctuation, and one is left almost intuitively guessing whethar a comma belongs to the source, carrier, or both. If one uses all of both punctuations (distinguished by placement inside or outside the quotes), there is absolutely no room for confusion as to which puctuation belongs to which source.

I also am not fond of the recent trend to lazily drop the last comma in lists i.e. "I eat banannas, oranges, apples and strawberries". I prefer "I eat banannas, oranges, apples, and strawberries". Without taking that formal consistency for granted, one couldn't verbally stress the following sentence correctly on a first read: "I eat meats, nuts and beans, bread products, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products." One would have stressed the sentence to end with 'vegetables' if they couldn't count on that final comma. In the same vein, I wish English employed that initial punctuation found in Spanish, where one knows to intone as a question or exclamation before they even start reading.

I'm also fond of the French 'oui' and 'si'.

In English: Q: You're not going to the store, are you? A: Yes. {response unclear.}

In French: Q: You're not going to the store, are you? A: Oui. {That is correct, I'm not going.}
In French: Q: You're not going to the store, are you? A: Si. {But, yes, I am in fact going.}

I love French. They have all those letters which aren't pronounced, but they are distinguished by the manner in which they are not pronounced.

My favorite system of consonnation is Gaelic, in which subject-verb-object are all optional and may assume any sequence, but replacement of initial consonants in words distinguishes words as being subjects or objects.

For years I grumbled about the lack of punctuation to partition tiers of lists deeper than that afforded by just semicolons and commas. I finally found it easier to avoid English grammer at all in such circumstances, and format in tree-lists instead.

Another problem area in grammer is the situation in which sentence structure is multiplicative. Eg: "Let examine the precursors and results of intuition and logic."
Implied in that example is:
"Let examine the precursors of intuition, the precursors of logic, the results of intuition, and the results logic." That was a simple example. Often a product of 32 permutations is intended.

It's probably evident that I'm a computer programmer. I also enjoy weaving structure as an art form. More than once I've written page-long proper sentences. One of my favorite proper sentences (minus all the punctuation) ended with 'and and and &'. I think at the time I was describing my method of utilising ampersands in comma contexts where 'and's stood in the more semicolon like contexts. If I had several nesting levels, I might have resorted to caps and bolds to further delineate depth granularity.

wow get a life please

Say, what do you think of nations 'electing' their UN representatives?

This pope made the suffering only worse by not allowing birth control and abortion!! So I go for the equal rights.

Yes. I think he'll be a cow in India in his next life.

I read "scared cows" at first glance. Now I am not near as keen on answering this question as I was in the beginning. What is a "sacred cow"...angus?

I probably should have read the explanation, nespah? "Immune from criticism or jest?" What?

I think you are the only person here that writes in all small letters. It doesn't do any good to make your comment anonymous if you use your tell-tale method of writing. Although I could be wrong, and you are not the person I think you are. Maybe someone is trying to frame you. Either way I enjoy typing, and this was a wonderful little exercise.

If people in south America, India, China, & Africa could even afford contraception, would they be starving?

Besides, it's not like most Catholics buy into the non-contraception BS anyways. If they are having pre-marital sex ( a violation of church docctrine) then they aren't going to fear the pope saying no to a condom or the pill.

I truly don't see how this affects people dying from starvation. Is it an indirect relation to women's rights, yes. I'm not arguing that women should be priestess, etc. I'm all for it. I just think that it would take time, weed it into the system. In additition, I consider thousands dying from starvation when food is available as a higher priority.

Excuse me for jumping in here, but I can't help myself

The people don't need to be able to afford contraception - there are charities and other NGOs prepared and able to give them out for free. Using them could help break the cycle of poverty allowing people in those countries to be able to afford to buy them in the future.

As for the argument about Catholics having an alternative - abstinence - to using condoms, it just doesn't fly. It isn't always the people but the rulers and governments denying the distribution of condoms. The people themselves might be willing to use them, but they don't have access to them. And there are a lot of people who just don't have the choice of abstaining. What is a wife of an infected man supposed to do? She has to submit to his sexual needs. If she could ask him to wear a condom, she would be protected and their children would be protected. Of course, if he'd never had sex with anyone but her, he wouldn't be infected, but that's hardly her fault is it? If HIV only killed those who disobeyed the rules the Catholic Church lays down, then they pandemic wouldn't be approching the size that it is - but it kills many people who *are* following their rules - women who were virgins on the day they married and never commit adultery just being one example. What about countries where the blood transfusion service is poorly funded and they cannot test blood supplies for the virus. Should a woman infected with HIV in that way insist her husband have sex with her without using a condom?

And HIV contributes hugely to people dying of starvation. You cannot work if you are dying of AIDS. You cannot support your family. You cannot raise your children. You cannot grow crops. You cannot contribute to the economy of your nation. You can't get an education. You can't ensure that your local environment is protected. Reducing HIV transmission would be a remarkable humanitarian act, and all it takes is an acceptance that condoms are the best way to do that. There's actually one cardinal (and potential next Pope) who has openly said that he would accept condoms for married couples where one partner is infected. It's a step forward. I just hope the future Catholic Church embraces the idea that condoms are ok when they're being used to prevent death rather than to prevent conception.

I understand your point, and like I was telling Maarten it's a very valid point. Again, I will repeat that feeding someone is much more important than passing out condoms and the pill at this point in time. Yes all of these issues need te be addressed. i'm just glad that you see it more or less in the same sense...this crap takes time. Ease it into the orthodox minds, and let them get used to it. It's like what the Greeks did, assimilation works, not forcing a group of people to believe something. Hell the catholics are infamous for this, 1/2 their holdays have pagan influences to them.

Going to a Catholic university, I can see the trends. The masses are moving to a more liberal outlook, it just takes time. Any new cardinals from this point on will have been ordained post Vatican, tis a good thing.

I actually disagree on the passing out food front - I do think that permitting condoms would do more good. It might take 10 years before you start to see the effects on the number of malnourished individuals but it would be where I'd put my investment. People don't want charity, they want the problems forcing them to need help to be ended.

Crops don't pop up out of nowhere, and there's no cure for HIV/AIDS. You're a scientist, I'm an extreme humanitarian. Just like so many times before, we'll agree to disagree

I think that the implication that I'm not an extreme humanitarian simply because I understand the science is insulting. You don't need to cure HIV if you prevent it and if you prevent it then the crops will do better. I see people who are all for hand-outs rather than hands-up as patronising and failing to see the larger picture.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I'm sick of being painted as "just a scientist" by the whole of society nowadays. If I'm a scientist then clearly that's *all* that I am. Obviously that makes me incapable of having any moral ideas or giving a crap about people. Why should I when I can just clone people to be my friends? Because that's what all scientists want to do and the poor and suffering of the world be damned. Scientists are just as evil as all the rest of you say we are. It's got to the point where I think we're about a step away from people spitting at us in the street. We're acceptable targets for discrimination and hatred. After all, embracing science is exactly the same as embracing eugenics and dropping the A-bomb on people. There is so little tolerance of science or technology any more and that horrifies me.

And I know you didn't deserve that little rant, but every day I'm reminded how many people hate me just because I'm running on evidence rather than gut instinct or religion.

I was simply basing it on past conversations that we have had suuchas preventing and curing medicine, is one that comes readily to mind, and that you are more conservative than I. I personally think you are more moral than I am. After all, according to Dante I'm not good enough for Heaven, because I consider myself a recovering Catholic (raised catholic, but have too many conflicts with organized religion, so I'm spiritual).

I view you like a close friend of mine who is going for Occupational Therapy. You science majors bring alot to the table. Alot of crap that I don't understand, and without it, many of us would be dead. Look at Ben Franklin, the world would be a very different place without electricity as we know it now.

Like I had said earlier, certain aspects you are much more conservative than I, this is all I meant. I do apologize for upsetting you, truly not my intentions. We actually do agree on many things, for example stem cell research. Anyways, I'm shutting up before I piss you or anyone else off for that matter.

So what friends ya going to clone first?
Interesting, I still thought the scientists were revered, but now that you mention it, Bush has probably put them in disfavor along with any other sort of philosphical or artistic thinking critters.

As I see it, scientific progress usually creates just as much problem as it solves. Nuclear physicas is a great example. Of course it depends upon the society at large. I was quite keen on my occupation as software programmer until I realised that rather than giving society a life of luxury, I was automating clerical technicians into starving telemarketing jobs. The role of progress exists in a big-picture society model that is obsolete by two centuries. Unfortunately, it's no ones job to do anything about that until another revolution comes along, so it seems. We are rapidly following the demise of Roman civilisation, and many lecturers see it, but none of them hold the reigns. Those who do, probably see what's happening too, but figure they can sqeak by not having it affect their lifetime. We may be increasingly depleting the sea even of breeding stock, but their will still be fish to catch with finer mesh nets for a decade or two. Already, we should be shifting emphasis to utilize oil for petrochemicals and plastics, and start investing in tidal generators and such while we can still afford to prepare. Capitalism would work great if it strove to save civilisation costs over the next two centuries, but it only strives to save a few people costs over the next few years.

From what I've heard, it's because they are starving that they would NOT want birth control. They are using a model like the US had in agricultural times, where a big family means more employees and wealth to the parents, regardless of the cost to society at large.

To me this makes perfect sense as throughout history, up until the early 20th century, families were larger than the current standards. Agriculture was a larger part to a family's life. good point.

I think hate is too strong a word for how people view science these days. I'd be inclined to call it a profound mistrust. A profound mistrust of what it is scientists actually *do* these days. This is fuelled not only by the sensationalism of the mass media (over-blowing everything from stem cell research to GM crops), but from a lack of transparency from science itself. And don't forget, an awful lot of what scientists are doing these is simply beyond the comprehension of anyone that isn't an expert. How do you explain to the average man on the street what the implications are of finding a new kind of quark as a result of a particle accelerator experiment?

Emma Rosenthal, as part of her early 20th c. womens lib revolutionary lectures went on a national campaign to convince the industrial poor that they were better off not having tons of children. That hasn't happened in places like India. I feel american culture is nearly two centuries obsolete, and other nations are even further behind. As radical as our revolution was, we needed one just as radical upon the industrial revolution before the cotton and railroad barons became the new anti-democratic king gearges. We all enthusiastically play our game of monopoly, oblivious that inevitably one victorious mogul will slowly milk the rest of us. Few have the vision to establish better rules.

Honestly, I think they know how corrupt they are. I personally view it as criminal against humanity & the environment. I just think that they don't care, as it's all about them, not the future or others. It will all hit the fan in someone else's lifetime, is their thoughts. More importantly to them, it will affect the socio-economic ladder from the bottom rung up, so they do have more time then the rest of us.

The other reason to be sceptical of science is not just that it is so far removed from common experience, as icurok mentions, but the manner in which it is associated. Driven by profit, at best, public agencies hand patents to industry to create experimental medical products, new computer drives, or other product knick-knacks. Meanwhile public water remains barely drinkable, buildings crumble, the alleys are still full of rubbish, people still sit in traffic jams...

There should be an agency like NASA dedicated to improving life ON EARTH. Most of our money goes into defense research, destroying life on earth.

Unfortunately the trend is getting worse, while appearing to get better, by universities playing the competiton game, holding patents and looking for profit outlets. By shifting the game into that paradigm, we are further yet from from the sort of public applications science should be offering.

I could ramble off 1000's of worthy projects, like clean nuclear power, but the only customers for such projects are those few socialised nations escaping the claws of the WTO. The age of reason has been corrupted and a new rennaissance is required.

Yep.

Two centuries ago the right to bear arms kept that in check. Today the problem lies in who controls knowledge, the media, and communication tools. It looks like free speech, because one can put up a web blog, but others control the vast volume of what people have to weave through or primarily encounter, and any truth gets buried as some lunatic fringe observation.

More worrisome though is that a lot of the public probably knowingly rides the coat-tails of such corruption, hoping it doesn't hit their rung within their lifetime either - "So what if the world runs out of oil, I'll probably be able to drive in america most of my life."

That's what especially irks me. we have the technology for hydroelectric vehicles, and for solar powered vehicles. While not 'cool' & can't go 90 mph, they serve their function. I personally think all new vehicles ought to at least be hybrids & phase out the use of gasoline and diesel. Of course this won't happen as it wouldn't be in the best interest of the politicians to push this issue, as they are almost all invested in the oil companies.

Have you heard of the right to 'free speach' zones? I know they typically pop up for visiting presidents during their campaign visits. I think the ones that FL instituded were on average, 3 blocks away.

It's a big concern of mine. Venice Beach, CA, a lovely sort of street circus got hit with calendrical booth reservation lotteries and free speech permits (likewise on the Santa Monica mall). An improvisational life where people strike up a guitar with a stranger on a sunny day at the beach is apparently too challenging to the 'march in step' crowd.

I'm building a hybrid motorized bicycle, something I independently invented. Solar is rather lacking by the time you factor in manufacturing and output. It's most useful for water heating. Hydroelectric is pretty tapped out, but I devised a system of inland aqueducts powered from northerly tidal flows. Likewise, I can imagine the bi-directional sort of tidal level generator beneath coastal or off-shore residential-business complexes. Really, I think the answer is too use nano-fusion, or at least fission on the uranium rich moon surface, and beam power down via microwave or a space tether. Jupiter would last fairly long as power source. We could turn our solar system into a space-ship and head off to Orion.

I can't tell if you were being serious with the latter part of the last paragraph as I'm not knowledgeable at all in those subjects.

I might have used the wrong term for the automobile, all I know is that the only 'waste' of the vehicle is water, hence why I called it hydro-electric.

Yeah, I was riding the edge there. Spaceship Sol was a bit over the top, but an extra-terristrial nuclear program (not in crashable sattellites) is feasable now.

You are speaking of a hydrogen vehicle, which is exactly the sort of hybrid i invented. Batteries can't store much, but brake regenerative electricity can also perform hydrolysis, splitting water (H2O) into the perfect mixture of H2 & O2 for recombustion. (and when it combusts, the exhaust is again nothing but water).

I've heard though that combustion alone is not enough for a conventional motor. The heat from combustion expands additives to push pistons (just like 1 unit of water becomes 1500 units of steam), otherwise, the combusting gasses would only 'implode' (shrinking to water), which would require an entirely different valve timing configuration.

Happy Birthday!

Yay. Happy Birthday ! I just had a big kids party in my courtyard today.

Thanks!

Thank you! That sounds like a lot of fun!

> I was simply basing it on past conversations that we have had
> suuchas preventing and curing medicine, is one that comes readily
> to mind, and that you are more conservative than I. I personally
> think you are more moral than I am. After all, according to Dante
> I'm not good enough for Heaven, because I consider myself a recovering
> Catholic (raised catholic, but have too many conflicts with organized
> religion, so I'm spiritual).
>
> I view you like a close friend of mine who is going for Occupational
> Therapy. You science majors bring alot to the table. Alot of
> crap that I don't understand, and without it, many of us would be
> dead. Look at Ben Franklin, the world would be a very different
> place without electricity as we know it now.
>
> Like I had said earlier, certain aspects you are much more conservative
> than I, this is all I meant. I do apologize for upsetting you, truly
> not my intentions. We actually do agree on many things, for example
> stem cell research. Anyways, I'm shutting up before I piss you or
> anyone else off for that matter.

Sorry - it's a pet peeve of mine and you really didn't deserve that whole rant. It wasn't really directed at you, rather at the frustrations of living in a decreasingly secular world after one of the greatest scientific booms in history. Day in day out, it's in my face, and it makes me concerned for my future as a scientist. I'm worried about funding being cut, or potential disease cures being ignored or breakthroughs prevented because somehow none of it is natural.

I would be interested to know why I'm more conservative than you. I consider it almost a challenge as a European to be accused of conservatism by an American!

> I think hate is too strong a word for how people view science these
> days. I'd be inclined to call it a profound mistrust. A profound mistrust
> of what it is scientists actually *do* these days. This is fuelled
> not only by the sensationalism of the mass media (over-blowing everything
> from stem cell research to GM crops), but from a lack of transparency
> from science itself. And don't forget, an awful lot of what scientists
> are doing these is simply beyond the comprehension of anyone that
> isn't an expert. How do you explain to the average man on the street
> what the implications are of finding a new kind of quark as a result
> of a particle accelerator experiment?

Mistrust might be right for the majority, but there is a lot of hatred as well. I'm an optimist, I look on the brighter side of things, and of the reactions that I get from people. Maybe you have to be out there as a proclaimed scientist to get the really negative reactions, or to be sensitive enough to the discussions to pick them up, but they are there. It's an intense negativity towards something that is central to my philosophy so it always feels like a personal attack even when it isn't. The NHS is beginning to embrace disproved alternative therapies. The Guardian has an alternative health advice colums every Saturday. People like Gillian McKeith are allowed on the TV. Vaccination levels are the lowest they've been in decades. Otherwise healthy children are being infected with TB in the UK. Children are dying of measles. A technology that has the potential to feed millions living in the least fertile parts of the world is being rejected for public funding so only the rich companies are benefitting from it.

A lot of it is down to poor education in schools and poor communication by scientists. I don't agree that the common man on the street is unable to understand even incredibly complex subjects - they just have to be presented correctly, in a way that they can understand. I explained theories behind parallel universes and time travel to my generally average ability friends when I was 14 (and vaguely understood them, unlike now!) using comics I drew in the back of my exercise books. We all got it and deeper concepts were raised that I only later discovered had been formally described by top-level physicists. I recently saw Insignificance in which Marilyn Monroe explains the theory of relativity to Einstein using toy trains and balloons. Yes, her explanation missed a lot out, but the core ideas were all there and put across in such a way that even a below-average child would understand. My brother is about to qualify as a primary teacher and the challenge there is to find a way of presenting the information in a way that all the children can understand, yet still stretches the more intelligent ones - and he is finding ways.

There's a real tendency for people to assume something is too hard for them and not even try it. Fine, without first doing a maths and physics degree and getting a brain transplant, I will never understand the subtleties of the Big Bang theory - but dumb it down a little and I can get the idea. The real problem is people peddling non-science as "truth" (our favourite enema lady being a fine example) and scientists tasked with communicating to the public who are far too arrogant and pretentious to do the job (can we say Richard Dawkins whose loftiness even I find insulting?)

I just got distracted by screaming kids outside throwing a frisbee. Bet someone could use that to explain all kinds of scientific principles to them! I've lost my thread - you can breathe a sigh of relief

I think scientists were revered for a time - especially around the 1950s when the initial horror of the atom bomb and worn off and major victories like the eradication of smallpox were being scored. I don't think that it's healthy to regard scientists as untouchables - people should question their methods and their motives and the applications to which they put their science. However, it does seem that now it's less a case of questioning those things and more a case of questioning science as a whole. I'm all for calling into question results obtained by a global warming researcher if he's been paid by BP - did he use reasonable methods? Has he massaged the results? But increasingly, people seem to be questioning the underlying principles - studies can't show anything because Mother Earth does what she wants and is capable of punishing Man as and when she pleases, carrying out studies only infuriate her, they are unnatural and should be banned. That's an extreme imaginary case, but I think it does describe the trend.

I don't think that science creates or solves problems - it's the way that the science is understood and used that has the power to have wonderful or devastating results. Of course certain applications need to be prevented - it *should* be illegal for me to create a nuclear bomb in the basement. But it should be clear that it is motives and applications that may be at fault, never the science itself which merely is what is. ("I am what I am" - can't stop myself throwing that in for you )

> The other reason to be sceptical of science is not just that it is
> so far removed from common experience, as icurok mentions, but the
> manner in which it is associated. Driven by profit, at best, public
> agencies hand patents to industry to create experimental medical products,
> new computer drives, or other product knick-knacks. Meanwhile public
> water remains barely drinkable, buildings crumble, the alleys are
> still full of rubbish, people still sit in traffic jams...

That isn't a reason to turn against science though, but to change the way funding bodies are set up. However, capitalism can work through science to benefit even the most needy. GM crops, initially developed by big US agricultural suppliers can be extended to have benefits for people living on infertile soils or in arid regions. I'd still like to see more humanitarian funding though - obviously really, since I want to go into public health

Yeah, it's fascinating. The kids all gather wearing black robes and chains, and sing dirges together. It's lots of fun, especially for the adults who get to lock them in trunks and suspend them from ropes blindfolded.

No, they rent one of those inflatable castles to jump around in, and had a pinata and picnic with relatives.

You're making me dig up examples? In regards to Americans, please don't allow the wanker in office to dictate the rest of us. Perhaps I follow more the European mindset than most. *shrugs*

You're welcome!

Hey, I'm all for the evidence-based approach

touche'

we give condoms out all day and foam, etc, biggles, in this office. The rates of infection of herpes, syphilis (sic) and other venereal diseases are on the rise. Why is that?

Because the people coming to you are a tiny minority compared with everyone out there having sex! They're also likely to be the less promiscuous ones.

Our country is going backwards in education also. The Religious Right has invaded our common sense. I can't see why we don't educate our children at the right age--puberty-on these kinds of things.

i dont know