Mxy did a priest really say that? Shit.

quote:
Originally posted by THE Franta:
quote:
Originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts:
franta ive never been so disapointed in my life!
please

please forgive me....

Leave it to the pope to spin the molestation on to abortion....Im on the fence on this issue...but pundits seem to love to use the abortion issue to avoid other problems!!!!
Oh, yeah. Its the Church's whipping boy.

Kristogar, I will try and accomodate your marijuana legalisation issue. I have heard that in my home state of Western Australia there is some talk about legalising it. I will investigate further. Plans to legalise it in the UK have recently run into resistance from a bunch of people, mostly to do with the fact that possession now gets you a warning, but dealing will get you a severe sentence. Its a political trade-off, but pro-hemp groups complain that it will mean folks will have to buy their mull from serious criminal types.

Other news - Taiwan's president has affirmed his country should be independent. This will cause teeth to be bared in Beijing. China regards Taiwan as a rogue province, and refuses to renounce armed intervention to get it back. Taiwan refuses to join the PRC while it is communist, but has always made an official claim to be the real government of China (it still calls itself the Republic of China, and uses the old pre-communist revolution flag of China). Taiwan is a democracy, and so the US backs it with military aid. Its come at an embarrassing time, as Jiang Zemin, China's leader, prepares for a trip to the US. Maybe he won't get to wear that cowboy hat after all.

Argentina's currency crisis is spreading to Ururguay and possibly even Brazil. Brazil has less overseas debt, so its less susceptible. Still, if South America's biggest economy was to go tits up it would not be pretty.

The Economist reported this week that the PLO had agreed to unconditionally stop suicide bombings, and the document announcing this was due to be released the same day that Israel dropped its bomb on the residential area. Israel had been goven a draft, which had been prpared in co-ordination with the Europeans. This was in addition to Hamas's offer to stop suicide bombings, on certain (difficult) conditions.

Two things come out of this:

1. Sharon's hardline policy almost got results. This surprises me, but it seems to have worked.

2. Despite this, either there was a terrible blunder in dropping that bomb, or Sharon did it calculating that it would spoil prospects for peace.

The operators of the world's five largest Internet domains asked the U.S. Commerce department to scale back the powers of the body that manages the Internet's global addressing system. The three companies that manage dot-com, dot-net, dot-org, dot-de and dot-uk told Commerce department Undersecretary Nancy Victory that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers should be reined in. ICANN isn't exactly the most transparent organisation in the world - sounds to me like some sort of boys club, where they do as they lease. Certainly the introduction of dot-biz was a stupid idea, which was always going to encourage cyber-squatters.

Finally, Tony Blair, UK PM is on holiday in France. He's a happy man - things are going well for his government, and even if they weren't he'd always be able to count on the Torys (conservative opposition) to fuck things right up for themselves. He has two big tasks upon his return - preparing to help the US invade Iraq, and convincing the English that they should join the Euro in a referendum planned for next year. Enjoy the sun, Big T.