bikes...

These are the bikes I have owned.


Three pics are of the actual bikes.


The rest are from the net.


Thought I'd show you.


I don't know why.


S'pose it's zen.


Maybe not.

oh god...

Responding to the discussion in the previous post, Icy Vovo emailed me the following which I thought deserving of a new post:

A leader should provide vision and integrity. Propaganda is the enemy of integrity. The Pope leads with weakness as he lacks integrity. He is not worthy to represent God on earth. He needs to be reminded 'Thou shalt not lie'.

My response to Icy Vovo is: Is God a lie? Who/what is god? I pose these questions because if God is a lie, then all those who claim there is a God are waging pure propaganda and are therefore enemies of integrity.

It's a minefield, I tell ya...

Catholicism, condoms, and AIDS...

In a comment on an earlier post, JahTeh said:"This is such hypocrisy when the Church discourages condom use which is contributing to the AIDS epidemic which is killing thousands in Africa."

This point of view is a popular one.

But I'm nothing if not a Devil's Advocate, so here goes...

She's wrong.

The Catholic church teaches that sex should only be done for the purpose of procreation and only by married heterosexual couples. The church teaches that sex outside such marriages is wrong. The church is perfectly entitled to teach such precepts. Therefore, if you and your wife are practicing Catholics, why would you need to wear a condom?

This whole uproar is overlooking the fact that a condom becomes an issue only if you are having sex outside of the Catholic precepts. In other words, if you should be wearing a condom, it's because you are ignoring Catholic teaching. Now, if you're going to ignore Catholic teaching, you'd be mad not to ignore the Catholic rule on condoms as well.

The Catholic church is not responsible for the outcome when people ignore its teachings, and to suggest otherwise is try to shift responsibility away from those who are really responsible i.e. non-Catholics or Catholics who break the rules of their church.

I'm open to any reasonable argument which seeks to show me where I'm wrong...

Waiting...

cheat neutral...

Carbon trading is the answer, according to Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd...

Still a bit confused about how carbon trading works?

This clever bit of satire explains it PERFECTLY >>>

( I did give this clip a bit of a plug about three months ago, so some of you keener types may have already watched it. So bite me...)

blog your head off...

It's official. Blogging's good for you. Expressive blogging, that is. And here at DD we're nothing if not ex#*%@pressive!!!

Iran, or not Iran...

I've said previously that the US is itching to invade Iran.

But...

An interesting article in Counterpunch by Uri Avnery puts up a convincing argrument for why the US and/or Israel would be mad to attack Iran. However, Uri does not factor-in the possibility that the US and/or Israel are indeed stark raving mad.

[Thanks to Mike B. for the heads-up]

more comPELLing news...

In the previous article, I introduced you to the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell.

Well, in this article, I shall honour him with the Diogenesian Discourse's Archidiot of the Year Award.

Why?

Pell is reported as having the view that the way to deal with climate change is to make more babies.

This gem of "wisdom" flies in the face of overwhelming evidence that the biggest single problem facing humanity right fucking (pardon the pun) now is the size of the global population. But Pell, as we have seen, is not big on evidence-based reasoning.

"No western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable" he is quoted as saying in The Australian.

I need say no more...

the pope and the cardinal...

The pope's in town. He believes in God. He also believes that the current climate change catastrophe is caused by human activity.

Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, and the pope's host in Sydney, also believes in God. But Pell is a climate change skeptic.

Now this is interesting. Think about it for a while....

Pell, without any substantive evidence for the existence of a god, can summon up a veritable mountain of unshakable faith in the existence of the non-existent. Yet, when the vast majority of climate scientists tell us that climate change is human-caused, Pell discovers The Church of Selective Skepticism...

Well, not quite...

He didn't "only just" discover Selective Skepticism. Pell is an old hand at being selectively skeptical when it suits him. And it suited him to be skeptical about the truth of Anthony Jones's allegations of sexual assault by a priest.

Which raises more questions about Pell... He hides behind the Catholic Church's Towards Healing process for dealing with complaints about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. This process limits compensation for victims to $50,000 and effectively prevents them from going public with their complaint. And when an alleged victim does go public, the Church, and I must assume here that this means with Cardinal Pell's powerful blessing, moves into full-on litigious counter-attack mode.

Jesus wept...

Anyway, it seems that Pell and The Pope will soon become even more closely acquainted...

Welcome to Sydney, Joseph Ratzinger...

...

“Modern life is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.”

—Ernest Hemingway

The 10 best things about booze >>>

It's so depressing...

On ABC1, Virginia Trioli (what a spunk, eh?) is interviewing my mate Penny Wong about Ross Garnaut's report which was released today.

Now, Ross, being an economist and therefore unable to bring himself to commit economic heresy, can't say what I'm about to say:

Measures capable of effectively dealing with climate change would crash the global economy. Absolutely no doubt about it. Ergo, depression, baby !!!

Now, since The Economy is The New God, we must not crash the global economy. Ergo, we will not be able to seriously impact climate change.

And here's the Catch 22: The joint impacts of climate change and oil depletion will absolutely crash the global economy. Ergo, depression, baby !!!

Are we getting this yet, boyzangurrlz? There's a depression not too far down the track.

hallelujah...

I've become a collector of versions of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

So far I've got versions by:

Leonard Cohen
K.D. Lang
Jeff Buckley
The Choir Of Hard Knocks

... and I quite like this YouTube version by K.D. Lang >>>

They all reduce me to tears. Every time.

(...don't suppose anyone can tell me how I can download (save-to-disk)
stuff from YouTube...)