I said they played like girls. (No slight intended to any girls I know.)

<truth>

I recently posted on the significant initiative by the UN to promote condom use in 41 countries by issuing a series of animated public service announcements (PSAs) aimed primarily at the 15-to-24 year old demographic.

Over this past weekend, the Catholic Church was quick to respond to the question, renewing its opposition to condom use - just when it seemed that some leadership within the faith was softening its stance - favoring, rather, faithfulnees and abstinence as the only certain methods to prevent the contraction of STDs.

This only reflects a longstanding debate between the Catholic Church - along with other conservative and faith based organizations - and the United Nations in its various guises.

See here, here, here, here, here, and here for details about Africa, abstinence, the Catholic Church, the current administration and other issues in this debate.

I realize that this is a difficult issue to discuss - or to write about - but it is instructive to consider the implications of the UN effort under way.

Ask a simple question: What does someone need a condom for? Answer it: To have sex with someone that they don't know or trust.

It is also factual that even though abstinence and faithfulness are surety against the spread of STDs - such behavior is far from universal. People are going to have sex with people that they don't know. It's just going to continue to happen.

But where the moral issue and the behavioral issue meet - there is legitimate question as to what condom promotion produces as a result. It is a reasonable point of view to take that condom promotion encourages having sex with someone outside of abstinence and faithfulness. It is also reasonable to find that, since the studies show encounter effectiveness rates somewhere between 80% and 87%, condoms only make such sexual encounters a game of Russian Roulette relative to STD contraction and the possibility, in some cases, of undesired pregnancy.

But beyond effectiveness rates are the more telling rates of use. The studies (you can find in the links above) all show that condom usage in sexual encounters is significantly less than 50% for anyone willing to talk about it. That means that even though participants have condoms and have perhaps been emboldened by such posession, something about the process of the encounter prevents them from being used. Use of a condom requires restraint. Restraint, it is fair to say, is likely not characteristic of a substantial number of such encounters.

As in many issues, the stance of some conservatives and the Catholic church is not rooted simply in moral conviction. It is also rooted in rational thought that should be pursued in debate. Such debate is not occurring - not when the UN can pursue its agenda with almost no press coverage about the rationale against it. (And to be fair - although it has not been advertized much - the US Agency for International Development donates hundreds of millions of condoms every year to poor countries as well.)

</truth>

<satire>

Contacted for comment, an unidentified UN spokesperson said "The United Nations is certainly no respecter of religion. We're not going to allow the views of some podunk form of Christianity foil us from achieving the goal of distributing 10,000 condoms for every man, woman, and child on the planet by 2007. If it takes covering the earth to a depth of several inches in condoms so that people will use them - so be it. We will distribute them and we will continue the stream of revenue that we require from this program." The spokesperson continued "It is obvious that abstinence and faithfulness, despite the unverified studies coming from Uganda, are not effective in the STD and HIV/Aids epidemic. The roughly 600 million Catholics in the world are just going to have to stand aside."

Asked what it is going to take to stem the epidemic, the spokesperson said "More condoms. We must have more condoms."

Asked about the fact that many African countries especially, already have large numbers of condoms available, but have no vital medicines and health care supplies, the spokesperson said "That's not my problem. It's all condoms for me."

Asked if the spokesperson preferred to have sex with or without a condom, the spokesperson declined to answer.

</satire>

There are other significant issues to this debate - some so significant that they bear another telling.

Thought I would share.

I enjoy posting from my laptop from lots of different locations - either in the house or on the road. When I'm traveling it seems that I always have a nice desk or table at the hotel or Starbucks that I happen to be in at the time.

At home it has been frustrating because I don't have a single spot that I like to post from. But just sitting the laptop directly on my legs has not worked well - it's just not comfortable from a balance perspective and from the amount of heat that is emitted from the laptop.

So, I looked around for a portable table that I could use anywhere - from the sofa by the television to the deck out by the river.

When I found the product that I'm now using - I didn't think it would work - it just didn't visually look 'right'. I had always thought that it would need legs or some visible means of support.

This is the "Lighted Lap Desk" from Brookstone. I am not an affiliate - I just think it's a great product - especially if you want to be able to be part of a community at home or wherever you are posting from and need to be in one of many particular areas and move between them - yet be comfortable. It's like having a comfortable pillow in your lap with your laptop on a non-skid surface and comfortable positioning for your wrists. You can move around easily to get comfortable. It's a good thing.

Here's the online Brookstone link for the Laptop Desk - they have much better pictures than mine - or you might want to go down to the nearest mall and check out the Brookstone there and see what you think.

If you have something like this that you really like I'd like to hear about it as well. I'm going to post for a very long time to come and I think it should be as comfortable as sitting in a coffee shop having a little chat.

Cheers!

But I think the Pittsburgh defense was pretty ineffective today.

<poking fun> Under intense pressure from Washington state bloggers and the Washington GOP, the MSM print media has begun to enter lock-step mode after all.</poking fun> Maybe it's just that the truth is just a little hard to ignore completely.

Look what was printed on the dead tree on the doorstep this morning. OK, the headline is not 4 inches tall and it's not really an EXTRA edition, but I'll take it: above the fold, headline in the Seattle Times - with a story that suggests that the felonious voting issue alone is enough to throw out the failed WA gubernatorial election.

This is good enough that I'll 'check off' headline #4 from my post last week.

Just in case you can't quite read that headline or you wish it was 4 inches tall:

Michelle Malkin has some good details as well. Thank you to Hindrocket for the link from Powerline.

UPDATE: Chris Muir stopped by and left a comment - thankful for the small relief for us - from what he captured for us succinctly the other day:

Ron sent along this link (audio will require an MP3 audio player - credits: Kevin from Brainpost for the audio capture, Web-nuts for the link reference) to an audio stream of Milwaukee area conservative radio host Mark Belling with the astonishing news that the 'unknown' voters in Milwaukee was much greater than previously thought because there were more than 8,000 more ballots than voters in the Milwaukee area. (If you have performance problems with the audio link above - I have put this up on my file site here).

We Washington devotees to our gubernatorial fiasco nod vigorously as we hear this news because we know that these very issues are at the center of the damage to our democracy. What next Wisconsin? Did felons without restored rights vote? Did the dead walk on November 2nd? Did those serving our country not receive their ballots on a timely basis? Soon, with your dedication to the truth, you will discover these things as well.

Would it be unreasonable to assume that these problems exist in every state? And that the key reason that they have been discovered in Washington and Wisconsin is simply because the races were so close? Isn't it time to raise the clarion call to reform our elections process nationally to prevent this from ever happening again?

UPDATE: John aka Dirty Harry at Stranded on Blue Islands sent this link to his Madison Wisconsin post where Kerry took 75% of the vote in the city of Madison. That makes three counties so far - Milwaukee, Racine, and Dane - where at least the same day registration issue produced significant fraud.

First, let’s get this on the table.  I could be accurately described as a conservative geezer.  One issue, of late, has been troubling me more than any other.  That is people trying to steal my vote.  Every legitimate vote should count.  It should not be counted two, three or four times.  In the Democrat controlled Municipalities of our country election day is chaos.  Have you noticed that all accusations of vote fraud are in Democrat controlled election centers?  Coincidence, I think not.

Wisconsin election corruption has finally been exposed.  We used to sit smugly by and look south to Chicago and Illinois and harrumph.  On Election Day, I had the privilege of working the polls at a spot in the inner city of Racine.  Because of a little hitch in Wisconsin law called “Valid Elector” virtually no voter contest can be upheld.  All you have to do is have one of these “Valid Electors” vouch for any number of people who have no identification and no proof of residence and like magic they are voters.  In my district alone I estimate over one hundred such cases.  Many of them listed the same apartment complex as their residence.

A polling of District Attorneys, City and County Clerks in Wisconsin yielded some interesting results.  Virtually no one is following the statues that exist for same day registration.  So much for any credibility in Wisconsin vote tallies.  There are no controls in place for same day registration and Move-On, ACT, New Voter Project (Interesting side note – This organization’s Milwaukee Director was convicted of election fraud in Madison), and various local GOTV projects know this all too well.  One might ask this question, how many students, vagrants, out of state guests, and felons voted not just once but more often on November 2.  We will never know since no public official in this state seems to be interested in honest elections.

Today’s update:

The latest article from Greg Borkowski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel names the names of Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett’s task force looking in to election issues.  Let it be said that I am not a fan of the Journal.  It, like virtually all Wisconsin Papers, could be mistaken for Pravda on any given day.  Greg’s work, however, has been outstanding.

The nine-member task force is made up of, surprise, surprise City of Milwaukee employees.  Of course, City of Milwaukee employees are completely bi-partisan.  I can attest to that.  They are either left-wing Democrats or far left-extremist Democrats.

That’s bad right?  Well, the first witness heard by the committee was Lisa Artison, Election Commissioner and task force member.  Did I say that?  Yes, I did.  Her major contribution was reminiscent of Sergeant Shultz’s famous line, “I don’t know nothing” and she read a dictionary definition of the word “estimate”.  I am NOT kidding!  I guess the difference between 8,300 and 83,000 is blamed on Webster.  Well folks, this is what we are facing in Wisconsin.  Move over Washington and Ohio we’re #1.

Ron

Friend Ron who has been providing tips on the vote fraud issues in Wisconsin has agreed to author posts here at POSC. We look forward to his reporting on the Wisconsin situation and the citizen's effort that he is involved in there.

Ron is a veteran of a military security agency - which means we can't say much more about it than that. He also spent 41 years working for a major commercial employer in Racine, Wisconsin and was the Global Retail Research Director when he retired from that company with 25 research organizations reporting to him by that time.

Ron and I think we have some good synergy in working together and we look forward to playing our respective parts in working towards election reform across this country.

If you could take a moment to welcome Ron with a comment - we would appreciate it very much.

Welcome aboard Ron!

It is always instructive for me to read the transcripts from momentous speeches.

Our president shows his mettle once again in his inaugural address.

Most obvious is his call to spread liberty throughout the world.

In its surprisingly fair analysis, CNN quotes friendly David Gergen:

"[It's] historically significant because I think he's revealed to us today his strategy to win the war on terrorism is far more ambitious than we ever imagined," Gergen said. "It's not simply going after Iraq and getting rid of Saddam [Hussein], nor is it simply going after al Qaeda. It is rather to expand and extend liberty across much of the world.

"No other American president has ever committed himself in an inaugural as fully as this to that kind of aggressive, foreign policy."

Sounds just like a Texas sized commitment, appropriate for my favorite Texan.

One item in the inaugural address that I liked a lot was the subtle but clear reference to Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech:

...And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.

From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?

These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom...

Is George Bush a dreamer? He is, and he is in the same context as Dr. King was. The allusion to being a people that are "judged according to the content of their character" is still that most noble dream.

The press is reporting that polls are divided on whether we can make good on this cause of liberty. I say "we can" because the president threw down the gauntlet to the citizenry yesterday. The appropriate poll question is not whether George Bush can spread the cause of liberty throughout the world, it is whether we can, whether we Americans have the content of character worthy to be hallowed together with that precious gift.

It is fitting as well that the president completed his remarks with calls of remembrance to our founders and the founding principles that form the crucible that judges us now in history. In a subtlety that can only be gleaned from reading the text, the president acknowledges the founders most enduring first principle:

History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.

I pray that in our Maker, in which Liberty finds its ultimate repose, we will find the content of character to continue to heed the call of our forefathers and this great president in these wondrous and perilous times.