Flying Spaghetti Monster

Finally a religion we can all digest.

From USATODAY:

'Spaghetti Monster' is noodling around with faith

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

Is the world ready for The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, Earth and its creatures after drinking heavily from heaven's beer volcano. The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, Earth and its creatures after drinking heavily from heaven's beer volcano.

Will its revelations — that pirates control global warming, that there's a beer volcano in heaven, and that superstition trumps science every time — overwhelm religious belief for all mankind?

http://www.venganza.org/

AIDS and $$ in SPS

The exchange rate is 20Lps to 1$. 700Lps is around 35$. Just over one dollar per day.

On the Honduran North Coast, a man with a good paying job like packing bananas for Dole earns Lps. 700 a month. Food for a family of five costs Lps. 63 a day, according to official government reports.

For the entire Honduran prison system, the total budget for medicines is Lps. 100,000 a year, even though dozens of prisoners are HIV positive. Obviously, with budgets like these, there is no room to buy drugs to fight AIDS. The new "triple cocktail", which reduces HIV blood levels to almost zero, currently costs $1 million a year. This is out of reach for 96 percent of the world’s AIDS sufferers...

...Garifuna communities in Honduras have been particularly hard hit by AIDS. In Santa Fe, there are 25 known cases of AIDS, most in their terminal stage. It is believed, says Tifre, that the rate of reported to unreported cases in Honduras is 1 to 30. There are only 5,000 people in the Santa Fe area, giving an HIV infection rate of almost 20 percent. This is not unrealistic. In San Pedro Sula in some industries, like seamstresses, watchmen, and food processors/sellers, the AIDS infection rate is 30 percent.

http://www.marrder.com/htw/jul97/editorial.htm

Living in San Pedro Sula

Maybe this is what is meant by the trickle-down effect.

World Vision fights poverty and sub-standard housing

By RAYMOND GUTT

San Pedro Sula has been experiencing an industrial boom thanks to the thriving maquila industry. This industrial growth has created thousands of new jobs and has been the reason for a large influx of rural people to this industrial center.

But while this boom may be good for the economy, it has also led to a shortage of low cost homes. Utilities such as water, electricity and telephone have also been over burdened by the rapid growth of the metropolitan area. There are many marginal communities without running water or electricity.

Typical construction of the houses in these marginal communities is cardboard boxes and large sheets of plastic held in place by mud. The dirt floors become muddy every time it rains. Standing water in walkways is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Cooking is done outside on crude wood burning stoves.

http://www.marrder.com/htw

Venezuelans demand justice after schoolboy murders - Yahoo! News

Venezuelans demand justice after schoolboy murders - Yahoo! News: "'We're protesting against the insecurity we are living with and to demand justice. Everyone is suffering because of this, it has nothing to do with ideology, we living in a crisis,' student leader Isabel Plaza told local television.

Police on Tuesday found John Bryan, Kevin and Jason Faddoul, aged 17, 13 and 12, dead from shotgun wounds to their heads alongside the body of the family's driver.

Investigators say a group of men dressed in police uniforms had stopped the victims at a false roadblock as they left for school on February 23. Kidnappers later demanded ransom of more than $4 million.

The Faddoul brothers were born and grew up in Venezuela and also held Canadian passports through their father, a businessman and naturalized citizen."

CNN.com - Schools that canceled prom offer compromise - Apr 5, 2006

CNN.com - Schools that canceled prom offer compromise - Apr 5, 2006: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Two Long Island high schools that canceled their senior proms after years of burgeoning excess that included limos and weekend house rentals in the Hamptons announced a cut-rate compromise Tuesday that will involve bus rides and other more modest arrangements.

Instead of hiring chauffeurs, students will take buses to a Manhattan pier for a dinner cruise. Instead of tuxedos and fancy ball gowns, the dress code will be jackets and ties for boys and dresses for girls.

The cost is expected to be about $100 per student -- a fraction of the cost of the wild parties of the past."

Tired of male domination, 5 Saudi women change sex - Yahoo! News

Tired of male domination, 5 Saudi women change sex - Yahoo! News: "Al Watan newspaper said the five women underwent sex change surgery abroad over the past 12 months after they developed a 'psychological complex' due to male domination.

Women in Saudi Arabia, which adopts an austere interpretation of Islam, are not allowed to drive or even go to public places unaccompanied by a male relative."

"Loyal" donkeys better than wives, says textbook - Yahoo! News

"Loyal" donkeys better than wives, says textbook - Yahoo! News: "'A donkey is like a housewife ... In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master,' the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds.

The book was approved by the state's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government but has sparked protests from the party's women's wing.

State education officials in Rajasthan, a western state known for its conservative attitude toward women, said people should not be upset by the comparison, the paper said.

'The comparison was made in good humor,' state education official A.R. Khan was quoted as saying. 'However, protests have been taken note of and the board is in the process of removing it (the reference).'"

Jesus may have walked on ice? - Yahoo! News

Jesus may have walked on ice? - Yahoo! News: "A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice thick enough to support a human to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.

Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a 'possible explanation' for Jesus' walk on water.

'If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't,' Nof said. 'Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it.'

'We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account.'

When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event."

Lack of women turns tables on suitable boys - Yahoo! News

Lack of women turns tables on suitable boys - Yahoo! News: "The sex ratio in many of Rajasthan's districts has dropped to 922 girls for every 1,000 boys, according to the last census. In one or two villages, it has plummeted to less than 500, the paper reported.

The joint engagement pact, called 'aata-saata,' or the 'double-couple plan,' has emerged as young women find themselves much in demand in a state where the traditional preference, as in much of India, has been for sons.

Heavily skewed sex ratios have emerged in several parts of India as couples use ultra-sound technology to achieve their desire for a baby son despite such tests being illegal.

A joint study carried out by researchers in India and Canada recently suggested that half-a-million unborn girls may be aborted in India every year.

But now the absence of girls is changing village dynamics, the newspaper said.

'There are no girls. If there is one in a house, the father is like a king. He can demand anything,'"

CowPi: A Foul Question

CowPi: A Foul Question: "Aristotle: Actuality precedes potentiality in terms of value. An egg is a potential chicken. A chicken is actual. Therefore, the chicken came first.

Evolutionist: There existed a bird, a proto-chicken, whose DNA mutated when it laid an egg from which the first chicken hatched. So, the egg came first.

2nd Evolutionist: Ah! That was a proto-chicken’s egg, not a chicken egg. A chicken must come from a chicken egg. The chicken came first.

Biblical Creationist: The chicken was first according to Genesis 1:21, “So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.”

Non-Biblical Creationist: At first it seems that either the egg or chicken could be created first. But if the egg was created first, there would be no chicken around to feed and care for the first hatchling. So, the chicken would have been created first.

Existentialist: What is the true meaning of the “essence of chickenness”? What were the circumstances of the pre-chicken prior to it becoming a fully actualized chicken? In other words, how did the pre-chicken exist without enough “chicken essence”? Whatever the answer, it was the egg that contained the necessary “chicken essence” needed to eventually become the chicken. Therefore, the egg was first.

Geneticist: For passing along its DNA, a chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg.

Rationalist: I lay eggs, therefore I am a chicken.

Postmodern Relativist: From the egg’s point of view, the chicken came first. From the chicken’s point of view, the egg came first.

Hindu: The egg and chicken are only stages within the cycle of life. There is no beginning or end to the cycle. So, neither one came first.

Pagan: The egg is a symbol of life, an initiator of things to be.

Taoist: The egg and chicken are one.

Zen: How many feathers does a chicken have?

The Matrix: There is no chicken. There is no egg.

Lexicon: Chicken comes before egg in the dictionary.

Culinary: Depends on the recipe."