From the Morning Fix: Hell Readies a Room #73
This came in today's Morning Fix and is, if SFGate is to be believed and I have no reason not to, utterly abhorent. Its also indicative of the strength of religious convictions that people hold, this idiot murdered his entire family to save their honor from being "tainted" by his daughter marrying a Christian man!

Without further opining..........
Hell Readies a Room #73
A court sentenced a Pakistani man to death for killing seven members of his family because he was angered by his daughter's decision to marry a Christian boy. Mohammed Nawaz, a former employee of Pakistan's Interior Ministry, confessed to the killings, though he insisted that he committed the crime to protect the honor of his family after his daughter announced her intention to marry a Christian boy. Among those killed was Nawaz's pregnant wife, who herself was Christian before converting to Islam to marry him. The daughter was also killed, along with three other children and two relatives that were staying with the family. According to Pakistan's main human rights body, at least 461 women were killed by their family members in "honor killings" in 2002.

Okay, not some opining about some of that mini article. Almost 500 women were murdered (not killed as that denotes something outside of premeditated murder) by their own families in 2002. That's unbelievable to me although I do believe it. We're the same species that has been known to slice off women's genitalia to prevent them from enjoying sex, we're the same species that enslaved and still enslaves our own species, we're part of the same species that gave rise to monsters like Hitler and Hussein who used their own people like lab rats. We're not some honorable high culture on the cusp of a cultural evolution. We are, the human race, poised on the brink of causing our own extinction. We already possess the capabilities to exterminate every trace of life from the planet, in my cynical mind its not a question of if but a question of when that capability will be exercised.

But don't take that to mean that I'm a pessimist. I take a large part of my motivation from none other than Jim Morrison of The Doors in the song Roadhouse Blues. To paraquote - "I don't know what's going to happen, man but I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames. Alright!"

We're also the same species that fostered the creation of a mother who threw her 3 year old child into the San Francisco Bay. Why? She had no explanation and even tried to take her child back after he was rescued from the frigid and polluted waters.

In Related Just-Not-Getting-It News
The Pope, that ever lasting symbol of repressive religious dogma, has issued a stern wake up call about "alarming" practices. Pope John Paul II issued a stern reminder that only priests can celebrate Mass, and divorced Catholics who remarry cannot take communion, expressing alarm over what he called unacceptable practices in his flock. Of course, Morford takes a little artistic license with the rest of the blurb that's worth a read but isn't especially pertinent right now.