Irrit8

John Derbyshire knows sex. A self-appointed “Carrie Bradshaw,” this superstud not only gets us thinking as to whether homosexuality is a genetic chance or a behavioral choice, but sweetly opines as to how homosexuals should behave in light of his current understanding. Is there a difference whether I write that John Derbyshire is a verbose, self-deluded prepuce, or whether I preface it with “he appears to be”?

I’m not entirely used to the notion of blogging yet. While I’ve been editing and publishing Annoy.com for over eight years – providing commentary and a mechanism to respond – it still seems to me that blogs, for the most part, are self-referential, self-obsessed meanderings of people who seem to think that their every thought or uttering (like “my pee was slightly darker than usual, but maybe it’s because it was slightly darker than usual when I woke up”) is of enormous significance.

Until I chanced upon an article written by a jerk – sorry columnist – by the name of John Derbyshire. Now anyone who writes for National Review should generally be ignored anyway. This is, after all, the publication that hired Jonah Goldberg simply because his mother, Lucianne, convinced Linda Tripp that taping private conversations was nobler than sucking dick for $200 and hour. However, the unfortunate looking Mr. Derbyshire wrote a diatribe that was so snide and holier–than-thou, that I decided to dissect his piece, smegma stinky as it was – point for point. Particularly after he delighted how the “magic of the Internet” freed him from the constraints of brevity in the application of his ill-will and confusion.

And to whet my appetite of what blogging enables, I decided to let rip. No niceties, neatly editorialized, but with all the ad-hom this arrogant twerp warrants. And the only reason his sorry looks are relevant to the topic at hand, is because when you’re talking about sex and sexuality, a frame of reference is usually helpful. Mister Hand, doesn't count. Further, he cloaks his middle class moralistic mendacity in “science” and pontification, when sometimes a hard-on is just a hard-on.

Why, one may ask, would I even waste my time on some loser that no one probably reads anyway, giving him and his retarded opinions more weight than he or they really deserve? He even seems to think that “everyone” hates him, like we all have nothing better to do, (just me), than dissect his crap. So yes, Mr. Derbyshire, go ahead and allow my trashing of your article to feed your ego. Looks like you need it. And perhaps it’s just because my pee was darker than normal this morning, although it could have been because it was darker than usual when I woke up.

Mr. Derbyshire's piece of shit, Metaphysics, Science, and Homosexuality, which was a response to his National Review article, in its entirety, can be read here. My responses are directed to him and at him. Maybe if there really is a God, she'll ensure he responds.

So jackass, first, assuming the religious basis for most of your points mattered an iota to someone who is not religious in a country that has a First Amendment to the Constitution that doesn't require any more respect of who you pray to in the privacy of your living room than who blows me in the privacy of mine, you offer nothing new or constructive. Sugar-coating shit simply sugar coats it.

In the first place, the main point I was making was not about homosexuality, but about current attitudes, and the metaphysics that underlies them. Whether homosexuals are indeed "born that way" is one question; whether it is "taken for granted" in modern society that they are is a separate and independent question. Either could be true without the other's being true.

Who cares? Whether it's innate or because holy Father Fuckface made young Charlie blow him too often in the confessional when he was a kid, it's still a perfectly legitimate social choice. You don't like it, don't do it. That you would offer Satan as a "respectable" let alone possible "scientifc" theory is almost enough to stop right there, but let's go through your list.

(1) Satan. Homosexuality may be a manifestation of Satan's work. While the least scientific of current theories, this one is probably the most widely believed, taking the world at large. Most devout Muslims, for example, believe it, and so do many Christians.

When people commit crimes because they "heard voices" they're either punished or institutionalized. Some of us don't base our behavior or actions on imaginary devils, fairies or mind conjuring. If homosexuality is Satan's work, feel free to thank me for a job well done.

(2) Social Construction. There is no such thing as homosexuality. There are only heterosexual and homosexual acts, which different cultures regard differently. The notion of "homosexuality" as a personality attribute is a 19th-century invention.

Not a bad point. Pity perfectly capable, spectacularly trained, intelligent men and women with a patriotic duty to serve the country they love can be discharged from the military for simply stating they are gay. Thus, even in the absence of "acts" where speech equals conduct, homosexuality as a personal attribute is very much a reality.

(3) Brain damage. Some insult to the tissues of the brain, perhaps at birth or in infancy, causes homosexuality.

Stupid premise. Perhaps you're confusing it with homophobia. An "insult" on one's intellignece however, could be inflicted by offering them this a "reasonably scientific" theory to explain homosexuality.

(4) Choice. People choose to prefer their own sex over the other.

Damn right. Some people prefer to listen to imaginary men wearing sandals in the sky when determining the gender they choose to fuck.

(5) Family influences in childhood. The Freudian belief is that having a weak father and/or dominant mother can form the child's personality in the direction of homosexuality.

The much debunked Freud is hardy a yardstick by which to measure anything tangible. Very 1976. Especially from someone suggesting homosexuality might simply be a 19th century invention. It doesn't take into account those of us with perfectly healthy, strong relationships with our fathers who were very present in our formative years, or mothers who were loving and supportive without being over-bearing.

(6) Social stress. Rats kept in overpopulated environments, even when sufficient food and access to females are available, will become aggressively homosexual after the stress in the environment rises above a certain level.

Hilarious. Perhaps you can kill them with kindness then. Just think, no homophobic torturing of kids, allow gays and lesbians to happily serve their country, marry who they like, and before you know it, the stress-free social environment will turn them all straight. Perhaps you should test it out.

(7) Imprinting. The individual's early sexual history can "imprint" certain tendencies on animals and humans. Many homosexuals report having been same-sexually molested in childhood or youth.

Indeed. And many of those imprints are made by priests and other religious adults in positions of authority. But then again, so what? How does that explain gay people who weren't molested, or straight people who were?

(8) Socialization theories. The high levels of homosexual bonding in some ancient and primitive societies suggests that the common mores of a culture have some power to socialize large numbers of people into homosexuality.

Nope. All the "high levels of homosexual bonding in some ancient and primitive societies" suggests is that it is highly unlikely to stop any time soon, no matter how many they try to electro-convert. And in some cases, there but for the grace of them, go you.

(9) Genetics, direct. Homosexuality is the expression of some gene, or some combination of genes.

Gee, I see how you would rate this along with Satan on your scale of "scientific respectability," but assuming it's a genetic issue, in your world view, your God either intended it that way or he fucked up. Choose.

(10) Womb environment - too much of a good thing. The presence of certain hormone imbalances during critical periods of gestation can have the effect of hyper-masculinizing the brain of a male infant. Paradoxically - there are plausible biological arguments - this might lead to the infant becoming homosexual.

And you believe that this "hyper-masculinizing" of the brain is a good thing? What is your paradox? You can't decide whether Richard Simmons or Mark Bingham hung out too long in the womb. Maybe Mr. Bingham would have got up and danced to oldies on Flight 93 and Simmons would have rugby tackled overweight housewives in sweats? Or would have Simmons slapped the hijackers? Plausible indeed. What's your excuse?

(11) Infection. Homosexuality may be caused by an infectious agent - a germ or a virus. This is the Cochran/Ewald theory, which made a cover story for the February 1999 Atlantic Monthly.

Don't sneeze on the baby or he'll be predisposed to suck cock? Sorry my daughter loves pussy, but she caught it by biting her nails. OJ made darker on the cover of Time, Kerry chooses Gephardt on the cover of the New York Post. As it so happens, the Atlantic Monthly said of me and my site in 1997: "The site is worthy of exploration for its irreverent use of interactivity, and there are also other kinds of provocative material here -- in particular, cogent essays on media and social issues that are as edgy as anything on the Internet." Do you believe them?.

(12) Genetics, indirect. Homosexuality may be an undesirable (from the evolutionary point of view) side effect of some genetic defense against a disease - analogous to the sickle-cell anemia mutation, a by-product of genetic defenses against malaria, negative to the organism but nothing like as negative, net-net, as susceptibility to malaria.

No more than it may be an undesirable (from the evolutionary point of view) side effect of some genetic defense against over-production of ignorant, narrow minded blow-hards who make sex sound as pleasant as fucking razor blades. Ignorance causes disease. Not sexuality. I beleive it was Margaret Cho who said "anyone who thinks homosexuality is a disease, has it."

(13) Womb environment - too much of the wrong thing. Here the effect of the rogue hormones is to feminize the brain of a male infant. (I assume that there are theories corresponding to 10 and 13 for female infants, though I have never seen them documented.)

Again, your notion of right or wrong makes so little sense, you need not have bothered differentiating 10 from 13.

The confusion between "genetic" and "inborn" is epidemic among the general public, however, to the despair of science writers. To readers suffering from that confusion - an actual majority of those who wrote to me suffer from it - I recommend the purchase of a good dictionary.

A dictionary? You're presenting homosexuality being the work of Satan as a reasonable scientific theory and telling others to purchase a good dictionary. You should purchase a big fucking dildo.

From what I have seen of the scientific literature, I should say that numbers 12 and 13 currently hold the strongest positions, with much, though I think declining, interest and research in 9 and 10, modest but growing interest in 11, and some lingering residual attachment to 6, 7, and 8. The other theories are not taken seriously by anyone doing genuine science, so far as I know. If anyone has information to the contrary, I should be interested to look at it - though I should only be interested in research written up in a respectable peer-reviewed journal of the human sciences.

You'll only deign to read "respectable peer-reviewed journals of the human sciences"? Read this, bitch. Last time I checked, St James' peers had some issues with some of his interpretations, but maybe that was just the evil work of the wicked witch, or could it have been Santa Clause?

I'm fascinated at what biological or psychological phenomenon might induce you to think that anyone gives a flying fuck about which of these theories is your favorite, any more than they care about whether your breath stinks, whether you scratch dicks with your teeth when you give blowjobs or what you think about when you masturbate.

(Lab studies - measuring sexual arousal caused by various kinds of images, for instance - confirm that the great majority of people everywhere are, in their inner lives, heterosexual, however they may express themselves under the constraints of their immediate environment.

I assume you can present or link to these lab studies, or at a minimum inform which labs and what experiments were conducted, by whom etc. Interestingly, my inner-heterosexual, ironically, is signaling that you should keep your inner-homo as far away from me as possible.

The "choice" theory, which most of my correspondents seem to cleave to, has as its main supporting evidence the fact that some people have been "converted" from a homosexual lifestyle to a heterosexual one, usually by counseling, often by religious conversion. I don't myself find this very impressive. The numbers involved are small, and these conversions seem to fall into the category of fringe phenomena you are bound to get when investigating something as complex and variable as the human personality.

Oh you clever, generous little twerp. Pray tell me what a homosexual "lifestyle" looks like. Homos only listen to Madonna while driving their pink SUV's to pick up their kids from soccer practice? What is a heterosexual "lifestyle'"? Lorena Bobbitt, Paris Hilton or Ann Coulter? Bill O'Reilly or Charles Manson? Do you think every gay person is predisposed to undulate on gay pride floats in gold thongs hysterically waving rainbow flags? Hopefully you're not referring to your own, tedious little white-picket fence, nuclear-family structure as a 'lifestlye" That represents neither life nor style. That's about as quaint as a fucking Geneva Convention. Usually it's those with weak personalities or who aren't successful at getting laid, or who are petrified of the stereotypical "distant or absent father" that claim to be suddenly "converted". Have you ever met any of those people? It's not pretty. At the end of the day, who cares? If someone chooses to be gay, con-fucking-gratulations. Unless you plan on participating in this choice, what's it to you?

You don't seem to be a "hate figure" to me. I don't give a rat's ass whether you're a homosexualist or homosexual, buddhist or like fucking chicks with dicks in Nazi uniforms. For my unsolicited two-cents worth, you appear more like a pompous asshole who writes for a publication where the likes of effete girlie-men like William F. Buckley make me wonder how you can even discern the nuances of masculinity in half the theories you advocate above, and Jonah Goldberg, which makes me wonder how you can discern what "respectable" is, let alone writing.

Because I am a strong First Amendment advocate, I believe you have the right to your fantasies and religion, as well as to the cowardly expression and insidious cloaking of your fear and insecurity. Your trite "it seems to me arrogant and unkind to tell people that they are 'called to chastity' if they do not hear the call themselves," for instance, is about as authentic as your "appropriate modesty," while you wallow in your distorted sense of self-importance.

I think, (and I know you care because it said so in the Psychology 101 handbook), that pseudo-moral hypocrisy is a far more social negative than homosexuality. Heterosexuality, even if you deem it "the bedrock institution of all societies," is absolutely merely one of a number of possible, and equally moral, "lifestyles." It's not that difficult to mimic either, so trying to lay claim to procreation as a justification for the exclusivity of marriage as a heterosexual institutionstituiotm is not yours to claim. If marriage is just about procreation, annul the marriage of Bob and Elizabeth Dole, and rethink Viagra as an insurance benefit.

If, as you assert, "male homosexuality is the source of public-health problems, (and was so even before the rise of AIDS)" why are so many women and men, straight or gay, who are engaged in breast cancer and other disease treatment and prevention causes, emulating the strategies initially formulated by gays and lesbians during the American white male AIDS crisis? Blame and ignorance are a far greater health hazard, and my hands don't appear to have any blood on them. How about yours?

I would even go so far as to day that if the fatal damage you refer to results in fewer arrogant twats spouting their vitriolic, holier-than-thou "moral" emptiness, the better off society will be. If your bedrock, centuries old institution can't hack it because two guys or two girls decide to make a commitment to one another, then let it fucking crumble. It's already a failure, and you can't even blame gays yet. It was on its way out long before Britney Spears trailer-trashed it.

If homosexuality inconveniences you, dig your beady eyes out and blow your eardrums, or shoot yourself in the head if you don't have the capacity to mange otherwise. Or get some fucking therapy. However, exercise a bit of restraint, discretion, reticence and a decent respect for those of us who don't give a shit about your fumbling, incapable and error-prone God and your glib, worthless judgments.

If marriage is the bedrock you so proudly claim represents a celebration of heterosexual pairing, reconsider asking why gay people might feel pride in something they can't help. While, of course, you vomit your bargain-basement bravura, moral hypocrisies and pseudo science to high-school children. Assholes like you make gay people who don't actually give a shit about mimicking your dismal, woefully inadequate institutions want to get married just to fuck it up that much quicker for you. You want a gay agenda asswipe, there you have it.

I don't know what century you're trapped in, but your superiority complex is ridiculous as your essay. All this highfalutin crap when after all is said and done, you think you' re a better parent, citizen, educator and morally superior human based purely on the tightness, moistness and location of the orifice you stick your tired shriveled dick into. Get the fuck over yourself.

[John Derbyshire can be contacted at olimu@optonline.net]

Posted by Unknown at 2/28/2005 01:51:00 AM | 5 comments

After receiving this annoying email from countless people I know a few weeks back, and then twice again today, I though I'd counter it to demonstrate the idiocy. (FWIW, I am an American white male between the ages of 17 and 40).

Do you remember?

1. On September 15, 1963, 11-year-old Denise McNair and three 14-year-olds: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins were killed when a dynamite bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama planted and detonated by:

• a. Olga Corbett
• b. Sitting Bull
• c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
• d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In the May 4, 1970 shooting at Kent State that stunned America and galvanized the anti-war movement , four American students were shot and killed by members of the National Guard comprised of:

• a. Superman
• b. Jay Leno
• c. Harry Potter
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

3. Serial killer Ted Bundy, who between 1974 and 1978 raped and killed young women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida confessing to 28 murders happened to be a:

• a. Lost Norwegian
• b. Elvis
• c. An 80-year-old women
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

4. On March 3, 1991, black motorist, Rodney King, who, while videotaped by a bystander, was struck repeatedly by Los Angeles police officers (LAPD) during a police stop, triggered the Los Angeles riots. The LAPD officers were primarily:

• a. John Dillinger
• b. The King of Sweden
• c. The Boy Scouts
• d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

5. Andrew McDonald, pseudonymous author of the "Turner Diaries" (the hate literature in the form of a diary about Earl Turner, a "righteous, upstanding Caucasian" who joins an underground resistance movement after the "Jew-Negro" conspiracy completed its overthrow of the United States government) was actually written Dr. William Pierce, founder of the white supremacist organization known as the National Alliance, who happened to be:

• a. A pizza delivery boy
• b. Pee Wee Herman
• c. Geraldo Rivera
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

6. The biggest act of mass murder in U.S. history, prior to the September 11th attacks, was the Oklahoma bombing by Timothy McVeigh whose homemade truck bomb killed 168 people, almost all civilians, including 19 children and infants. The person responsible for this brutal attack was:

• a. The Smurfs
• b. Davy Jones
• c. The Little Mermaid
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

7. It took the FBI 17 years to track down Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, who, terrorized Americans with mail bombs, killing three and injuring 29. Born May 22, 1942, the Unabomber sent the first mail bomb in late May 1978 to Professor Buckley Crist at Northwestern University. At the time his killing spree began, Ted Kaczynski was:

• a. Captain Kidd
• b. Charles Lindberg
• c. Mother Teresa
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

8. Eric Robert Rudolph, the man responsible for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the Olympics in Atlanta, in which one woman was killed and over a hundred injured; the 1997 bombing of a women's clinic in Sandy Springs, and a gay nightclub in Midtown; and the deadly 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic, in which one police officer was killed, and a nurse severely injured was:

• a. Scooby Doo
• b. The Tooth Fairy
• c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1992, U.S. federal government conducted a military siege of a rural Idaho family at Ruby Ridge, ultimately killing Randy Weaver's dog, son and wife. The four hundred armed federal agents included:

• a. Richard Simmons
• b. Grandma Moses
• c. Michael Jordan
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

9. On April 20, 1999, 13 student were gunned down by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in cold blood at Columbine High School in Colorado who just happened to be:

• a. Mr. Rogers
• b. Martha Stewart, to distract attention from George W's credibility problems
• c. The World Wrestling Federation
• d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

10. Johnnie Walker, --the mujahid of Marin County-- who was able to join -- and did -- the Taliban and become a confidant of the Al Qaeda network was also:

• a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
• b. The Supreme Court of Florida
• c. Mr. Bean
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

11. In 2004 professional footballer turned Ranger, Pat Tillman, was killed in Afghanistan by:

• a. Enron
• b. The Lutheran Church
• c. The NFL
• d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2005, Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. who was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqis in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, an embarrassment to the U.S. military fueled by the release of graphic photographs is:

• a. Bonnie and Clyde
• b. Captain Kangaroo
• c. Billy Graham
• d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40
  

Nope, .....I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? Let's just profile people because their names are Muhammed or their skin is darker than Ann Coulter's.

Posted by Unknown at 2/24/2005 10:57:00 PM | 0 comments

Clinton's Karlrovini Fraud image from the Mandates and Candid Hates cover is being bombarded. Here is a mirror to help divert traffic.

Mandates and Candid Hates

Karl or Jeff or now could it be James?
A White House full of fun and games
Tasty Male hookers, Ari Fleischer’s pride
Testy McClellan’s got nowhere to hide

Talon News Talent and Blogger Baby Claws
Maggie Gallagher memos for columnist whores
Press credential cachet for horny male sluts
Presidential cash to purchase ethical cuts

Cum guzzling Armstrong doing business in bed
Teaching the sinful how to get right ahead
Fantasy buttocks, hard on crotch on the mind
Leaving sanctity sacrosanct, leaving no child behind

Pretzel Pig Pansy, Presidential Insight,
Hating man mandate, hotmilitarystud web site
Softball diversions from Solid Rock Cock
From the Unmarried Queer to the Cheerleader Jock

Oscar season sanctimonies as the stories get loud
From the lynching of Churchill to the columns of Dowd
The Summers at Harvard where women woe scores
While the men at the White House get access as whores

Dead media mainstream asleep at the wheel
With Brad and Angelina to keep it all real
Imus in the Morning in malfunctioning cities
Blitzer of the blunderbuss pinching Michael Powell’s titties

Once West Wing blowjobs commanded attention
Now as quaint and as fashionable as a Geneva Convention
Karl Rove and his Filthy Boys Minding the Store
As he squats for his Jesus, and kneels for his whore

Yes, the image is based on the Barberini Faun that Maureen Dowd referenced in her New York Times, February 17, 2005 editorial.

Posted by JasonW at 2/23/2005 01:21:00 PM | 3 comments

"Million Dollar Baby" is a brilliant piece of propaganda that works because it is based on something deeply true: Human beings are afraid of physical debilitation; we are naturally repulsed by suffering we cannot cure. Science may tell us that after an adjustment period, quadriplegics are about as happy after their accident as they were before. No matter. The idea of living life trapped like that horrifies. Out of our horror, we dehumanize those who suffer. And then we celebrate murder as an act of love.

Maggie Gallagher, the prostitute columnist who took tax dollars better used for almost anything else, to promote marrige in 'BABY'S' MESSAGE DISCOUNTS VALUE OF HUMANITY
Tue Feb 15. So how much were you paid to tout the "value" of humanity, Magge? What makes you think you are in a position to even address it? Are you even aware that many, many people consider you, at best, disgraceful and ethically challenged? How must it feel to be considered as lowly in an industry that already has no integrity? The only merit your story has is that you probably know more about "fat, lazy, good-for-nothing cheats" than most. Your every word drips with hypocrisy. How unfortunate am I to have unwittingly stumbled upon your self-righteous diatribe? You should hang up your pen wherever it was you prostituted your credibility.

Posted by Unknown at 2/23/2005 04:32:00 AM | 0 comments

In a Feb. 14 AIDS article by Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, the paper (New York Times) reported the following:

"Laboratory tests in Dr. Ho's laboratory and elsewhere have shown that the strain from the man whose case started the investigation is resistant to 19 of the 20 licensed anti-retroviral drugs."

The Times also said:

"The second virus is from an unidentified patient in San Diego who was apparently infected before the New York City man. It was found by scouring the records of a commercial laboratory, ViroLogic Inc. of South San Francisco, and portions of its genetic makeup closely resemble the molecular pattern of the New York City man's virus, Dr. Ho said.

"Dr. Ho's team sent the partner's virus to ViroLogic for testing. Doctors from around the country send thousands of H.I.V. specimens to the company for testing." (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/health/14aids.html?pagewanted=1)



The Times failed to mention that AIDS expert David Ho, MD, sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the ViroLogic company; a fact that should have been reported by Altman.

I believe it is a conflict of interest for Ho to cite ViroLogic as an entity without informing Times readers of his connection to the biomedical firm.

Michael Petrelis, San Francisco Activist. While these connections do not necessarily reflect ill-intent on behalf of any of the players, the lack of transparency and failure of media entities to understand the importance of them is mind boggling.

For instance, consider a ViroLogic Inc. press release which states: "Understanding the clinical utility of Replication Capacity in the management of HIV-infected patients is currently the subject of a $1.5M grant awarded to ViroLogic by the National Institutes of Health."

In light of interference of the current administration with regard to education related to health, particularly its emphasis on abstinence as opposed to condom use, makes these associations all the more insidious.

If, as Michael Bates, M.D., Vice President of Clinical Research at ViroLogic Inc. is insisting, the case of the current AIDS patient in New York "reinforces the importance of resistance testing in the management of HIV patients, including those individuals who have not received prior antiretroviral treatment," it can't be all that bad for business if ViroLogic Inc. is touting its own technologies as being responsible for identifying the highly pathogenic isolate of HIV. Further, ViroLogic's boasts that its analysis confirmed the data from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC), and "importantly, revealed therapeutic options that informed the selection of a drug regimen for the patient."

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that based on the business objectives of ViroLogic Inc. (or any biotechnology company) as well as the nature of their 1.5 million grant from the NIH, the existence of this new strain represents a fantastic opportunity for the company, both in touting the value of their products and technologies in the identification and treatment of the new pathogenic isolate, as well as legitimizing the government grant. Money well spent.

In this perfectly fair world we live in, perhaps after ViroLogic Inc. makes its first $1.5 million directly attributable to the fear and hype surrounding this new resistant strain of HIV, they'll donate the equivalent of the NIH grant to a program that promotes condom usage or teaches children how to protect themselves from viruses. The NIH certainly won't, and nor, it seems will Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who is terribly preoccupied preventing children from witnessing the devastatingly dangerous spectacle of lesbians making maple syrup.

In the meanwhile, PBS can start preparing a show where the animated bunny named Buster visits the hospital wards of youngsters dying from AIDS to learn how parents, friends and families deal with the grief and sadness resulting from failed policies and misguided priorities. It appears these "lifestyles" are more in keeping with Margaret Spelling's perceived constituency. Perhaps Merck will have fast-tracked and released a new potent anti-depressant for kids and parents by then -- and a sponsorship to ensure the airing of the episode.

For now, at least we have you to help quell the imaginations of conspiracy theorists and cynics by demanding responsible disclosure from the media, who with a few rare exceptions, as Randy Shilts once taught us, don't have the faintest clue. Thank you Michael.

Posted by Unknown at 2/22/2005 10:50:00 AM | 0 comments