More About the Pope's Trip

At times, during the visit, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.

The Pope Went to Britain

The Pope arrived in the UK on Thursday with his armored car and plenty of security to protect him from police officers with arrest warrants.

A Solution to Global Warming

I just stumbled onto this article about people in a Swiss Village who since 1678 have been asking for intersession from the Pope to keep the nearby glacier from growing and destroying their village. It seems however that for the last decade the glacier receded about 12% due to the warmer winters and decreased snowfall, so they have asked the Pope to intercede again.

It is not clear whether the villagers think that the Pope is doing an exceptional job of fulfilling their original request or they think of it as a new problem that requires additional Papal blessings. If the villagers were unsure which it was, that might at least partly explain why it took them a whole decade to act.

Still this is really a slap-the-forehead moment. If someone requests blessings from the Pope for each of the receding glaciers, we'll nip this global warming thing in the bud in no time. I'd be happy to help out if it means I don't have to worry about leaving carbon footprints everywhere I go (Damn those bituminous Hush Puppies!) but we don't currently have a lot of glaciers in Ohio and the latest polls indicate that most Ohioans don't want any. If you know of a glacier that lacks representation, let me know and I'll dash off a note to Rome right away.

The Power of Religion?

The news over the last few days has included articles about the trials of parents whose children died and about a man who fell and broke his wrist. The trials were both for the prosecution of parents whose children died while family and friends prayed for a cure instead of taking a child to the hospital. In neither case have I seen it reported that the parents have given up their faith in the healing power of prayer, so apparently, no one has learned anything from these experiments. Could these people be so brainwashed that they can't see a simple cause and effect relationship, or could it be, maybe, that if they turn away from their religion they have to admit they killed their own children.

Oh, the guy who fell and broke his wrist was the Pope. It would seem that even he can get no special protection from his religious beliefs.