Farts are made by two things. They are made by one, the amount of air you swallow–so people who drink a lot of soda, chew a lot of gum, suck on candies, they get a lot of air into their colon, and that air comes out in farts. The second component is gas production by the colon. The colon’s job is to break down the nutrients in food products, like proteins and fats and sugars, and in the process of breaking them down they produce either sulfur or methane, neither of which smell great.
If, let’s say, the colon has stuff in it like grapes and beans, and if it’s just sitting there for a few days it’s just going to ferment more and more until it becomes very smelly, versus if what you eat goes through quickly–like if you had the same beans, but it came out eight hours later, you’ll tend not to have as much gas from those beans. So it has to do with what your intestinal transit is. For most people, it takes 32 hours from the time they eat something to the time they shit something. That’s the average, so that means there are people who move their bowels every three or four days, and they have more time for the beans to ferment in the colon, thereby producing larger amounts of gas and more frequent, smellier spasms of gas.
The explanation for this behaviour is that the bee is protecting its hive, and thereby its genes. Worker bees are generally sterile (though they can produce male eggs under certain circumstances), so the only way it can make a genetic contribution to the next generation is by helping the hive, with which it shares a high proportion of its genes.
From a gene’s eye view, this is not suicide at all, but merely the death of one carrier of those genes, to preserve the life of many more carriers. So – apart from the examples of social insects, DO animals commit suicide?
The solution is so simple that it proves that any other being offered is simply stonewalling and avoidance. Jesus (everybody's favorite prime authority, except when He's inconvenient) said: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Ergo, prison sentences (Caesar's form of penance) must be served by those many who committed crimes of commission or abetting. (Remember: Driving the getaway car in a bank robbery is just as punishable as the guy with the gun stealing swag.)
Key players in this worldwide debacle must volunteer for prison sentences and say lots and lots of Hail Marys and Our Fathers for years while wearing prison orange. If this doesn't happen (starting with Cardinal Bernard Law, say) then it's clear the Church Rulers believe that real penance is not good for the soul…or that they've already lost theirs.
Turn yourselves in, all of you. Then we can begin to restore some semblance of moral integrity to the church.
If one deems Rasmussen tilted to older, whiter, likelier voters, this result is all the more striking:
Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters think Israel should be required to stop those settlements as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% of voters disagree and believe Israel should not be required to stop building those settlements. Another 29% are not sure.
Men skew toward the US president not being pushed around by a foreign prime minister:
Fifty-six percent (56%) of male voters say Israel should be required to stop new settlements in the disputed territory as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians, but just 42% of female voters agree. Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats and a plurality (48%) of voters not affiliated with either party favor an end to the Israeli settlements as part of a deal. Republicans are almost evenly divided on the question. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of GOP voters and 61% of unaffiliateds view Israel as a U.S. ally, a view shared by just 46% of Democrats. Forty-three percent (43%) of Democratic voters see Israel as somewhere between an ally and an enemy.
No big surprise in Laura Rozen's new piece that Dennis Ross, a central figure in the pro-Israel lobby, a protege of Paul Wolfwitz, the co-founder of the AIPAC-founded, Washington Institute For Near East Policy, and a fervent believer in Israel's eternal control of all of Jerusalem (meaning a two-state solution will never happen), is the main pro-Netanyahu voice in the Obama administration:
“He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn't seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration.”
So an official in the US administration is claiming that Ross is more concerned with Israel's side of the story than with America's. This is not that surprising given that his position on Israel's holding Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital is well-documented. From an interview with the Jerusalem Post in 2008:
You raised the issue of Jerusalem. That was at the AIPAC speech. And what [Obama] said, he said the following: "Jerusalem is Israel's capital." He said the city should never be divided again. And it's true that in that speech he didn't make the third point, which is, the final status of the city will be resolved by negotiations. Before the speech he said that, after the speech he said that. The American position has been those three points.
The fact of the matter is, Jerusalem is Israel's capital. That's a fact. It's also a fact that the city should not be divided again. That's also a fact. The position of the United States since Camp David, the position, by the way, adopted in the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, signed by [prime minister] Menachem Begin, was that the final status of Jerusalem would be resolved by negotiations. Those are the three points. That's what his position is.
Ross does not mention that he helped write Obama's speech. But he concedes that he omitted from the speech the fact that the final status of Jerusalem would be resolved by negotiations. I also note a remarkable use of words: "It's also a fact that the city should not be divided again. That's also a fact." How can a "should" be a "fact"? If this is something to be decided by future negotiations, how can it be a fact? And why is someone framing an argument as something that simply cannot be questioned?
It is also true that in that same speech, Obama clearly stated:
Israel can also advance the cause of peace by taking appropriate steps — consistent with its security — to ease the freedom of movement for Palestinians, improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and to refrain from building new settlements — as it agreed to with the Bush administration at Annapolis.
My italics. No new settlements; no new building over the 1967 line. In no way can barring that adversely affect Israel's security. In fact, in helping facilitate the re-emergence of the US as an honest broker in the dispute, it alone is the pre-requisite that can rescue Israel from its path to assisted suicide. Netanyahu has to choose: between an unsustainable present and a last chance for peace.
And Obama should stand absolutely firm against the agents against change, such as Dennis Ross.
The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one "toward the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion."
Solid evidence of covering up the rape of children is "the petty gossip of dominant opinion." He will not answer the relevant questions; and since he cannot hold himself accountable he cannot logically hold anyone else accountable. We are told, as the US government tells us with respect to torture, we should move on.
The Dish will not move on – either on full accountability for war crimes or on full accountability on child-rape. If we cannot hold public officials accountable for these most heinous crimes, then there is no accountability left.
(Photo: The Pope earlier today at a Passion Sunday mass by Franco Origlia/Getty.)
To listen to Bill Donohue of the Catholic League this morning on the John Gambling show as he went on his usual tirade about the New York Times and its attempt to depose the Pope (his opinion) as it exposed the truth of what has been taking place in our Church was another example of how easy it is to shoot the messenger. He suggested that the problem of abuse is worse in the public school system and just as bad among orthodox Jews. His words were sickening.
Hmmm, I remember my mom’s response when I used to defend my wrongdoings to my mom by saying “everyone else is doing it… “ etc. “Well, you are not everyone else!” Do we not hold ourselves to a higher standard? Is there not a real story there when a Church that claims to be the ‘true church’ of Jesus Christ is unable to handle full disclosure of the truth?
Once again, the mantra shouts from the heavens: “There will be no healing until there is justice; no justice without the full truth; no truth without full accountability.”
The Pope’s apology during his visit to the United States rang hallow and his latest apology is no better.
None of the five communications that I have addressed to Rome: Two to the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, One to Pope John Paul’s personal priest secretary, one to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one (hand delivered) to Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (successor to Benedict XVI), and numerous communications to Archbishop Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, were ever acknowledged.
I have been involved as an advocate in a case involving substantial allegations against a prominent priest of the Archdiocese of New York. The case has been pending for over six years without a response from Rome.
There is a serious cancer in the system and it is not going to disappear. I have known from the outset that this scandal would eventually reach the doors of the Pope.
Integrity within the Catholic hierarchy has sunk to a new low.
Kill Jeremiah, execute Jesus and kill the prophets who speak truth to power. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
The Dish 