HAHAHAHAHAHA!

PZ Meyers gets an unexpected solicitation by email:

So Mike Koelzer the Fetus Fetishist Pharmacist wants to speak at PZ's church... and why not? He sounds like an accomodating guy -- well, unless you're trying to fill a script for birth control pills, then he's a total fuckhead. But no problem: PZ notes that the feti-pharmafetishist's "Kay Pharmacy" has an online survey so people can make suggestions about how to improve the store... hahahahaha! We know where that's going.

Indeed, lifeshite has caught the play and they've got the whine turned all the way up -- they are anything but pleased:

"P.Z. Myers, the infamous Minnesota biology professor who incited a national outcry after desecrating the Eucharist and photographing the act for his blog, has now focused his energies on a new target - Mike Koelzer, a member of American Life League Associate group Pharmacists for Life International." [...]

They didn't capitalize "The Act"? Hmph. Onward:

"An outraged Myers asked his blog readers to flood Koelzer's Web site with mail. They replied en masse with over 400 threats of profanity and hate-filled messages including:


"Burn the building to the ground. And have Mike Koelzer sterilized."


"Commit suicide."


"And..... the rumor is you have quite a nice looking butt and if you play your cards right ... well, let's just say, I can be awfully grateful."

"Not content with desecrating Catholics' most sacred Sacrament, Myers is once again spewing hate and anger at anyone who would dare proclaim a belief in God or attempt to stop the murder of the preborn," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League."

And so what? Koelzer's the one who offered to speak at the Church of Pharyngula in the first place -- if he had the brain of a chunk of tofu he might have done a little research first and avoided this hideous mistake. But such is life in the Vortex of Dumb. You own it, fetus fetishists, so stop crying.

It's the sex-ed and contraception, stupid

Birth Pangs reports that new Statscan data shows abortion is in decline. This is great news -- in spite of what the anti-abortion lobby would have you believe, abortion isn't as casual a decision as wearing heels or flats. Not even for those of us who know from the moment we see the blue line what our course of action will be. So I for one am glad that less women are having to make that choice.

Anti-choicers are understandably anxious to take credit for the decline since it would seem to justify their insistence on keeping their noses firmly stuffed you-know-where, but hello? If anything, the anti-contraception gospel they preach is a mass-abortion waiting to happen. And as Robert points out, the decline occurred without any of the kind of regressive, nanny state abortion laws anti-choicers advocate. Hmm!

The probable reason for the decline is fairly obvious and threefold:
1.) More and better sex education
2.) Easier access to contraception
3.) The economy, stupid: More people are working, more people can afford to have a kid. Yep, it's that simple!

If anti-choicers want to believe the decline is due to a big anti-abortion wave sweeping across the country, who am I to deny them their fantasies? Although the fact that it's happening by choice and not by force of law isn't something I'd want to draw much attention to if I were them. But that's just me!

New nitwit in town

Time to see what new trials, tribulations and idiotic appointments our friends south of the border have to endure. The latest one is Susan Orr, appointed this week by Bush to oversee federal family planning programs. Oh dear -- where does Georgie find them? Right, the Family Research Council -- he has to throw a bone to the whackjobs once in awhile.

But I digress... Ms. Orr is supposedly highly-qualified. Just not for this particular post -- she refers to contraception -- contraception, mind you, not abortion -- as part of "The Culture of Death" these drooling anti-choice cretins are so fond of referencing as they swoon and clutch their pearls. Here's part of Orr's curriculum vitae:

– In a 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to “stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees” to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr.

– At the 2001 Conservative Political Action Conference, Orr cheered Bush’s endorsement of Reagan’s “Mexico City Policy,” which required NGOs receiving federal funds to “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” Orr said that it was proof Bush was pro-life “in his heart.”

– In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.”

– Orr authored a paper in 2000 titled, “Real Women Stay Married.” In it she wrote that women should “think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage."

Oh, yeah! -- hand someone who's against contraception for gawd's sake a huge budget for family planning services and watch her blow it on abstinence-only plans that are proven failures. Duh!

More religious right stupidity

It doesn't take much to get me going on the idiocy of the religious right, but once in awhile one of them does or says something that's so destructively imbecilic that my outrage almost makes me spin out and burst into flames. Here we go: in an interview with the BBC, a Catholic archbishop in AIDS-ravaged Mozambique said that European condoms are deliberately infected with the AIDS virus as a conspiracy to wipe out the African population:

"The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence." [...]

Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.

"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries."

The combined stupidity and reckless ignorant evil personified by such a statement is breathtaking. Think about it. Sure, we know it's ridiculous, but someone, somewhere (particularly in Mozambique) doesn't know, looks up to this crackpot as a high-level religious figure, and assumes he knows what he's talking about. So they might give "sexual abstinence" a whirl, but in the imminent event that it doesn't work, they're left thinking whatever you do, don't use a condom! They're infected!

16.2% of Mozambicans are HIV-positive. 17.5% are Catholic. Coincidence?

The Pill = lower cancer risk

I love the smell of Vindication in the morning.

Contrary to the falsehoods anti-choicers disseminate in the propaganda for their sneaky little war on contraception, the Birth Control Pill lowers the risk for several types of cancer by 12%:

"Contrary to popular belief, not only does taking the contraceptive pill not raise a woman's chances of getting cancer, according to a new study her risk will probably go down. You can find this report in The British Medical Journal (BMJ). However, if a woman continues taking the contraceptive pill for over eight years her risk will then start to go up."

Gee, this news makes me wish I'd taken the pill for longer than 2 years (I opted out in favour of an IUD when I noticed a few new pounds creeping up on me -- oh vanity, thy name is JJ). But I won't hold my breath waiting for retractions from the usual fetus-fetishizing suspects who've blogged at length about the Dangers! of contraception... they'll opt out of this reality just as they opt out of any reality in favour of whatever cherrypicked statistics fit their odious agenda.