Mad scientist at work

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Professor Milton Diamond has suggested that legalising child pornography could reduce child sex abuse.

From here:

Could making child pornography legal lead to lower rates of child sex abuse? It could well do, according to a new study by Milton Diamond, from the University of Hawaii, and colleagues.

Results from the Czech Republic showed, as seen everywhere else studied (Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sweden, USA), that rape and other sex crimes have not increased following the legalization and wide availability of pornography. And most significantly, the incidence of child sex abuse has fallen considerably since 1989, when child pornography became readily accessible – a phenomenon also seen in Denmark and Japan. Their findings are published online today in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The theory appears to be that sexually abusing children, photographing the abuse and distributing the photographs for perusal by potential abusers, could lead to an overall reduction in child abuse – even though a few children have to be sacrificed as collateral damage in the process .

Could anyone other than a mad scientist completely devoid of any moral insight whatsoever, have come up with such a perniciously evil idea?

Protecting our right not to be given a Bible

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The Waterloo Region District School Board voted to let Gideons International in Canada distribute Bibles to Grade 5 students.

Predictably, amongst the first to protest this distribution of Bibles in schools was Rev. Rick Pryce, a pastor for the uber-liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. As he points out:

“In this country we are supposed to protect the vulnerable and impressionable from abuse from pressure. And the Gideon’s Bible is clearly designed to turn the kids who read it into Christians.”

Obviously the last thing the pastor of an ersatz Christian church wants is to convince impressionable children to become Christians by encouraging them to read a Bible. That would be exploiting the vulnerable; perish the thought.

The “mission statement” of the particular parish that Pryce pastors carefully avoids anything crass like bringing people to Christ or making disciples; instead we have the insipid:

St Philip’s strives to be a caring and friendly church, for all people. Through our worshipping, learning and serving others, we believe that God will show his love to the world.

No doubt this is supposed to be a model of bland inoffensiveness: it is an offence to the Gospel, though.

Apple Computer censors the Manhattan Declaration

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Steve Jobs and Apple have always been in favour of gay marriage – and censorship, it seems. Apple has removed an iPhone application based on the Manhattan Declaration because Apple has deemed it “anti-gay” and has taken upon itself the role of moral nanny for its easily corrupted plebeian users.

From here:

The “Manhattan Declaration” app, made by a group with the same name, as well as by evangelist Chuck Colson, asks users four “yes” or “no” questions:

1) Do you believe in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman?

2) Do you believe in protecting life from the moment of conception?

3) Do you support same-sex marriage?

4) Do you support the right of choice regarding abortion?

Pretty corrupting stuff that – I’m going for a cold shower now.

Western art has lost its way

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I know that isn’t news, but here are the latest examples of grotesqueness for its own sake masquerading as art:

The ant covered Jesus on display at the Smithsonian:

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and the 7/7 London bombing with four angels, one for each of the bombers:

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Both works are intended to shock. Sadly, that seems to be all Western art has left to offer: no meaning, no beauty no transcendence, just shock – each shock more shocking than the last.

Bankrupt art for a bankrupt civilisation

The unusual defence of a Christian nudist

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From here:

A self-described Christian naturist arrested for passing through a Tim Hortons drive-thru in the buff was not completely nude, his lawyer argued in a court in Bracebridge, Ont., on Monday. Brian Coldin was wearing sandals, Clayton Ruby pointed out, and he was on or near his own property and he never behaved in a “prurient or indecent manner.”

Mr. Coldin’s argument that he wasn’t nude because he was wearing sandals is a little like a bald man claiming he is not bald because he has a moustache.  Coldin might be better served by pointing out that every year homosexual men prance with impunity down Yonge Street completely starkers as an expression of the pride they have in being gay. If they can get away with it, why can’t he?

The Anglican Church of Canada sings Silent Night

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From here:

This Sunday, Nov. 28, is the time to act. Everyone is encouraged to sing “Silent Night” and to send in videos to General Synod as part of the Silent Night Project.

Regrettably, Bishop Michael Ingham and half the other bishops in the ACoC  succumbed to choking fits when they sang the line “Round yon Virgin Mother and Child’. Luckily, there were no fatalities since the bishops, having recited the Creeds every Sunday, are well-practised in spouting what they have long ceased to believe.

Wiki indifference

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Wikileaks has revealed that:

  • Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on UN – even asking for DNA
  • Claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the British royal family
  • Chinese operatives waging cyber war on U.S.
  • The bargains to empty Guantanamo Bay
  • Arab leaders privately urging an air strike on Iran
  • Ahmadinejad compared to Hitler
  • Stand-off with Pakistan over nuclear fuel
  • Plans for collapse of North Korea
  • Details of corruption in Afghan government

Who cares? Didn’t we suspect all that already? What I really want leaked is the number of women Julian Assange has raped:

A Swedish court ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange detained on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation Thursday, and an international warrant will be issued for his arrest, according to the judge and prosecutor on the case…..

Assange’s lawyer in Sweden, Bjoern Hurtig, also said the prosecutor’s petition was “exaggerated” and “out of proportion.”

He stressed to AFP that his client

“is absolutely prepared to come to Sweden (and) wants to cooperate,” and had even proposed some dates that would work for him, “but we have not been able to agree.”

It’s a measure of Assange’s ego that he believes that, having been accused of rape, appearing before a court  should be at a time “that would work for him”.

Privacy in the 21st Century

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Photographing exhibitionists who take their clothes off for a living in front of people is an invasion of privacy:

A group of strippers and their waitress colleagues who met on the roof for their breaks have found out their hideaway wasn’t as private as they thought.

Women working at the Zanzibar Tavern, a strip club in Toronto, believed no one could see them when they popped out for a cigarette or cellphone call while still in their work attire.

But a Ryerson University librarian, Brian Cameron, took photos of the women from his office window in August and September….The club’s owner, Allen Cooper, says the women feel their privacy has been violated. Many dancers try to keep their occupation under wraps, something they won’t be able to do because the photos show their faces, he said.

While groping a woman waiting to get on an aeroplane wearing a sanitary towel, apparently isn’t:

In short, she was asked to walk through a radiation firing naked body scanner and complied. The scanner produced a naked image of her, but because her sanitary towel was obscuring her most intimate parts from prying eyes, the TSA agents pulled her aside for a full groin search. Not something to be relished by any person, let alone someone who has previously suffered sexual assault.