John Aravosis raises a good point

Go read this post about an African priest who was suspended by the Roman Catholic church for blowing the whistle on child abuse. Only in the RC church could such a thing occur.

Toward the conclusion of his post, Aravosis raises a good point:

If the Vatican doesn’t intervene and reinstate Anthony Musaala, we’ll know all we need to know about the new Pope.

Indeed. Let's see if popeyguy Frank puts the priest back to work. I'd like to think this will happen and that he will praise the priest, as well. But this is the Roman Catholic church. We shouldn't get our hopes up.

Good article on the evolution of humans

I just read a great article in the New York Times. It's an interview with Chris Stringer, a British paleoanthropologist, and it touches on so many interesting topics. It's about where humans came from, why we have 2.5% Neanderthal DNA, and whether we're still evolving. Good stuff. Here's a short excerpt about the pre-humans in Africa who were our forebears. He's discussing the situation just before homo sapiens appeared:

Populations in different areas would have flourished briefly, developed new ideas, and then maybe those populations could have died out, even — but not before exchanging genes, tools and behavioral strategies. This kept happening until we get to within the last 100,000 years, and then finally we start to see the modern pattern behaviorally and physically coalescing from these different regions to become what we call modern humans by about 60,000 years ago.

Apparently, we are the result of a mix of many pre-human populations. We're mutts.

Aside: The fact that humans have only been around for 60,000 years is shocking. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old. Earth is about 4.7 billion years old. And we've been here for, uh, about five minutes and have nearly managed to kill the entire planet in that short time. Makes you think (and shudder).

Go read the article. You'll be glad you did. Knowledge is good.

War is the essence of peace

The New York Times has an interesting article today. Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. The president’s push is part of a larger American effort to further isolate and increase pressure on Iran after accusing it of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

So let's tote this up. Obama cited a ridiculous story about Iran attempting to assassinate a Saudi official on US soil, in order to drum up hostility against that country and much more importantly, to make Obama look manly in the eyes of the rightwing lunatic fringe.  Let me repeat the key phrase I just used: a ridiculous story. And now they're pressuring nuclear inspectors to say that Iran is trying to create nuclear weapons technology. Let's think about this for a moment.