To show how damaging the effects of a theistic society can be after its extremist followers take 'gods word' to incredible extremes, you only need to look at the societies that support and permit female genital mutilation and the collective ignorance and superstition that enforces it.

My then girlfriend while in university took a course in what I remember as comparative religion and one of the components of the course was the effects of religion on the women of the societies where that religion was practiced. They got into topics like female circumcision and even foot binding and other heinous crimes against the women of these societies.

I was just sickened. I couldn't believe that humans could exact that punishment to half of the race just for the fact of that sub selection being female.

If there were no females, then society, the whole human race would cease to exist. Birth rates would plummet.

I wondered how much of this was from catholicism and that 'religions' sick view of women being the root of 'original sin'. (Which begs the question on whether Jesus was an illegitimate child of someone and was encased in much hoodoo to cover the 'original sin'... Interesting thought... Di Vinci Code anyone?)

Is it a perversion of a patriarchal society? Sure. Should it be tolerated in our supposed 'modern society'? Hell no!

Look at the beliefs that eating Tiger penis or ground Rhino horn or any number of parts of now endangered animals and you see the same type of simplistic superstition and its damaging effects.

How do you legislate morality and common sense? Fair trade deals with these nations that show a blind eye to these crimes against women should not be tolerated under any circumstances. To back or support such agreements should be viewed as crimes against humanity and nothing less.

I picture Huckabee as being like Mac OS X.

You know there's some other operating system deep down there but you really only get glimpses of it through 'Terminal' and 'Activity Monitor'. It's scary and most people fear it but it's there, lurking underneath, quietly in the dark...

I fly Northwest. An airline that recently discovered heat and the idea that people flying might actually want to eat more than the peanuts they used to offer.

Seriously... Try to fly Northwest and not want to jump out of the plane like DB Cooper because there isn't any entertainment (unless you consider watching the dust bunnies and week old crumbs chasing each other on the floor entertainment, not to mention the trials of the person sandwiched between the elephant and the whale in the opposite row).

And hey, try to get wifi in Detroit Metro airport! Unless you are a true masochist and are a member of Northwest's frequent flogger club, wifi is a for-pay service (like sex, although we all pay for sex, indirectly) although being bombarded with Airport CNN at supersonic volume is free...

Cellphones in planes is a huge bad idea. Technology reasons aside, that is a HUGE bad idea. Wifi on the other hand could be a panacea to relieve the intense boredom and angst at having the worst service and nothing to do for hours waiting to get on, to take off, to get there and get off the plane.

Free wifi in airports sounds like a capital idea too. "Why'd you miss your flight?" "Reading salon.com."

So, I and the wife decide to tape a 'tender moment'.

I'm breaking Vivid's copyright by taping my wife and I getting it on?

What?

Shit, I should copyright breathing then. I'd make so much money!

Pay up suckers!!! And don't breath without a license and royalty payments!

People are reposting porno videos? Why?

Wouldn't real people doing those things be better anyway?

and I didn't read the article all of the way through, obviously...

Needing sleep isn't conducive to reading articles, and apparently promotes commenting when one shouldn't...

So now that we know why they do it, what's next?

Give up?

Take to arms?

Start picketing their offices?

Start egging their cars and offices?

How does the people living in "the world's greatest democracy™" make their elected 'representatives' heel to their wishes?

Bush redefined up as down and failure as success so now the democrats have redefined failure as success?

Ahh, the abuse of logic. But this government has been proven to torture people, why not logic.

How do people living in 'The World's Best Democracy™' make their 'representatives' heel to their wishes?

How? Overthrow the government? How do a people take back their country from the corporate brown nosers that control it?

By the sounds of this, there is little hope that the election next year will change anything for the better. Is it time for people that care about such quaint ideas as 'democracy' and 'justice' to leave America?

The stock market is being gamed. The justice department is being gamed for political benefit. How can this be fixed? Is it better to let it run its course? Can the world afford to allow that?

What to do...

And just in the nick of time, the steroid report surfaces. Ahh, distraction...