Scribal Terror

Fashion Fascists and Proud Pumas

Here's how Iranian censors embellished a Versace spread in Wallpaper, Sept. 2005. As Heidi Klum says, "You are either in, or you're out." The mullahs want you in. Check out j/turn's collection of censored magazines -- the pettiness is mind-boggling.

J/turn found a little sweetness and light in his travels as well. This young lady, a sports store employee faced with an absence of Puma company wimples, embroidered her own:

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

The Ethics of the Rhythm Method

Ethicist Luc Bovens raises some awkward questions about the Catholic Church's favored method of contraception, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald blog Dissection:

Part of Catholics' opposition to the contraceptive pill, he points out, is that it in the event that a woman ovulates despite it and the egg is fertilised, then the pill's effect on the lining of the uterus may prevent the resulting embryo from implanting. Since, according to Church doctrine, life begins at fertilisation then that can technically be interpreted as an abortion. Ditto for the intrauterine device (IUD).

In natural menstrual cycles, free from hormonal or pharmaceutical or mechanical manipulation, there is an optimal time of conception - within a day or two of the egg being released from the ovary. Leave them too long and they start to pass their prime, less able to carry the genetic recipe for a healthy baby.

So, Bovens says in the Journal of Medical Ethics, it's reasonable to assume that some of the rhythm method's effectiveness comes not from preventing the egg and sperm getting together in the first place, but from the creation of runt embryos that don't stand a chance of passing muster in the great Darwinian survival race. Add a decaying uterus lining later in the cycle and the poor clump of cells doesn't stand a snowball's.

The same argument could apply to a newly released egg that is fertilised by geriatric sperm, still hanging around from before the period of abstinence.

"If it is callous to use a technique that makes embryonic death likely by making the uterine wall inhospitable to implantation," Bovens writes, "then clearly it is callous to use a technique that makes embryonic death likely by organising one's sex life so that [fertilised] ova lack resilience and will face a uterine wall inhospitable to implantation."

I have never understood Catholic opposition to barrier contraception. Now it makes even less sense. Is it better to kill an embryo or to prevent one from forming? Somebody's argumentation needs some serious tweaking.

Do sheep have the right to be gay?

The Times reports:

SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes. . . .

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned.

Navratilova defended the “right” of sheep to be gay. She said: “How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?”

They're sheep. They have wool. They go baa. They have the right to be gay. Is there anything wrong with the logical progression here?

Not sold in stores

Not any more, but back in the day, Santa could put a glow in their eyes (and various other body parts) with some real radioactive materials, as RADAR explains:

In 1951, A.C. Gilbert introduced his U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, a radioactive learning set we can only assume was fun for the whole math club. Gilbert, who Americanmemorabilia claims was "often compared to Walt Disney for his creative genius," had a dream that nuclear power could capture the imaginations of children everywhere. For a mere $49.50, the kit came complete with three "very low-level" radioactive sources, a Geiger-Mueller radiation counter, a Wilson Cloud Chamber (to see paths of alpha particles), a Spinthariscope (to see "live" radioactive disintegration), four samples of Uranium-bearing ores, and an Electroscope to measure radioactivity.

Girls' Schools Bombed in Pakistan

IRIN News reports via Gateway Pundit:

Over the past two months, at least two schools in the area have been bombed. They include the Government Girls’ High School at Akharwal in Darra Adam Khel, which suffered damage after a bomb attack at the end of November and the under-construction Girls’ Degree College Sheraki, whose boundary wall was damaged in another bomb attack.

"There have also been notices affixed on the gates of schools, asking people to stay away. The situation is very bad," a spokesperson for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said at the organisation's Peshawar office.

Parents of pupils, teachers, school heads and bus drivers bringing pupils to schools have also been threatened and warned to stay away. In other cases, militant extremists have made phone calls to schools, ordering that girl students wear the 'burqa' (a full veil covering the body from head to foot).

The targeting of schools for girls is not limited to Darra Adam Khel. In November, am aerial attack carried out by the Pakistani military in Bajaur Agency, killed at least 80 pupils at a seminary school. The attack has led to a marked rise in extremist sympathies in the area, with the bombing widely condemned.

Recently, pamphlets circulated in Bajaur have warned parents to keep girls away from school and ordered schools to ensure children are dressed in shalwar kameez rather than 'western' clothes including trousers and shirts.

The problem is a part of growing 'Talibanisation' across the province, spurred on by the situation in Afghanistan. There have been various reports of attacks on music or video shops, threats to barbers not to shave men and warnings to female health workers and teachers to leave specific areas across many parts of NWFP.

Perverts.

Word of the day

emysphilia

There oughta be a law

Here's a list of things the NYC City Council either banned or tried to ban in 2006. From the NY Post via Reason:

* Trans-fats.
* Aluminum baseball bats.
* The purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds.
* Foie gras.
* Pedicabs in parks.
* New fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods).
* Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.
* Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.
* Vehicles in Central and Prospect parks.
* Cell phones in upscale restaurants.
* The sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute.
* Mail-order pharmaceutical plans.
* Candy-flavored cigarettes.
* Gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily.
* Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
* Wal-Mart.

He's a Good. Ass. Mother. Liker.

Laurie and Fry. Yes, that's House rapping.

The island of Soledad Miria

It's just off the coast of Panama, and half of it was seriously singed when somebody's gas stove malfunctioned. Surprisingly, no one was killed but a number of people were injured. Via Arbroath