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Pope denounces condom use in Africa - in fact, he says condoms "aggravate" the problem of AIDS. I'm sorry to say it, Your Holiness, but you're lying and you know it. Please stop.

While I'm on the subject of inflammatory quotes, former Iranian prez Mohammad Khamati is scheduled to visit Australia, prompting protest:

Mr Searle told the Age that although Mr Khatami, president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, was regarded as a reformist, he was a sponsor of terrorism, a Holocaust denier and leader of a country that had often threatened to "wipe Israel off the map".

"Only last year, this supposed champion of dialogue called Israel 'an old, incurable wound on the body of Islam, a wound that really possesses demonic, stinking, contagious blood'."

What a revolting comment. Did Khatami actually make it? Googling only brings up other people saying that he said it, and searching various relevant sites, such as the ADL and the Central Council of Jews, brings up nothing. Since Khatami is on record as saying the Holocaust is "an absolute fact, a historical fact", that brings into question the rest of the claim.

Obviously (but this is the Intersplat, so I'd better spell it out) this is not to say that Khatami is a saint who has never made any ugly remarks: I'm only questioning whether that particular quote is accurate. Although I do also question the whole "beyond the pale" thing, the whole "we're not talking to him/her" thing, on the grounds that it is better to jaw-jaw etc.

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I've buggered up my wrist, so I can't get much housework done today, so you're about to be spammed with all my backed up links. Plus I'm in a rubbish mood. Duck and cover.

Recent postings suggest that lj Doctor Who fandom may be beginning to reclaim itself from the shipwarriors and other obsessives. Huzzah.

Australia's gag rule will soon be lifted. "[Foreign Minister Stephen Smith] Mr Smith said the focus of Australia's foreign aid would remain on avoiding abortions by providing better family planning education, as he pledged to boost funds for preventing maternal deaths by $15 million over four years."

Saith Gordon Brown: UK, US 'aiming for nuclear-free world', with Britain making some reductions to its nuclear arsenal and offering to go further if the US and Russia will.

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad? "Take anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don't sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses or lead people to behave in ways that doctors mistake for mental problems."

Guantanamo guards "take their last revenge"

Carbon dioxide is good, so more carbon dioxide is better! Unless you're a foram and can't make a shell because dissolved CO₂ has acidified the ocean. Oops.

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The plural of octopus

Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary

Math Student Slang

Laughter Among Deaf Signers

It's no laughing matter

Kitchen Table Lingo (You could find our "half moon table" easily, but it'd be harder to locate the "ausgang" - and what would you use to make a "Frankie hankie"?)

Antarctic Slang

Inuit Snow Terms: How Many and What does it Mean?

"Christina Hoff Sommers criticizes feminist professors for using the made-up word 'ovulars' - but in the last quarter-century, practically the only person who’s used the word is... Christina Hoff Sommers."

Scholars Perform Autopsy on Ancient Writing Systems - why do they die out?

Adipose

A slim couch potato has poorer health prospects than an overweight person who exercises regularly, sez an Australian expert, and there was a similar report in the NYT last year: Better to Be Fat and Fit Than Skinny and Unfit . Interestingly, yesterday, as my physio jotted down a long, long list of my medications, she remarked that the gym must be doing me some good because I'm not on pills for high blood pressure or cholesterol. Two cheers.

"Lessons about body image should be as widely taught in schools as sex and drug education programs, an eating disorders group has advised."

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Rick Warren's Africa Problem: "Warren's defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa. [...] But since the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of work against AIDS in Africa has gone unexamined. [...] an investigation into Warren's involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education."

Bystander training - teaching onlookers how to intervene - can help combat bullying and sexual assault.

Gender pay gap hurting fertility: study "The number of women working and the hours they work have been on the rise during the past decade, in contrast to the static rate for men... Despite this, women continue to earn, on average, eight per cent less than men, a gap slightly wider than a decade ago. The research shows women also take on the majority of family responsibilities, which is affecting decisions to have children."

The number of Australians with HIV has hit a record high

Australia couples trial a male hormonal contraceptive

Report sharply criticizes sex education in Texas schools. Abstinence-only education, plus a parental consent requirement for minors to obtain contraceptives, would certainly help to explain why Texas has a teen pregnancy rate 50% higher than the national average.

Random stuff from Psychology Today

Happy or not, Russians rarely smile in public

Why girls are killing themselves. "[Teenage girls] lack the privacy needed to work through the emotional struggles of adolescence because of cell phones, instant messaging, and social networking sites. 'Let's say things aren't going well in middle or high school and you email someone about it,' Hinshaw says. 'Soon it's all over everyone else's email, text messages, MySpace, Facebook. Everyone knows what's going on in your life and they're all talking about it. You can't escape it.'" (Online fandom's version of this is the "dogpile", in which a small scale dispute explodes into a drama with a cast of thousands.)

How muggers and rapists pick "easy targets"

Bullying

Big Bad Bully: a Psychology Today article from 1995 explains the basics, focussing on bullying by boys. Hmm, this is interesting: "Bullies, for the most part, are different from you and me. Studies reliably show that they have a distinctive cognitive make-up—a hostile attributional bias, a kind of paranoia. They perpetually attribute hostile intentions to others. The trouble is, they perceive provocation where it does not exist. That comes to justify their aggressive behavior." That certainly fits the indignant "she asked for it" mentality of a lot of ugly behaviour I've seen online.

Everyone Loves a Bully: PT again, 2004. "[Psychologist Jaana] Juvonen thinks that intervention must address a social system that privileges bullies, rather than simply targeting individual perpetrators. 'No matter how you teach bullies to see their world differently, the rewards of the behavior are still there once they step back into the schoolyard,' Juvonen says. Teaching children not to applaud antagonizers by giving them attention can change social expectations and norms. 'Empowering them to intervene in bullying situations would be by far the most effective strategy.'"

Cyberbullying grows bigger and meaner with photos, video "When they put it on the Internet, it's like they took everything and multiplied it by an astronomical number. It's one thing if it's a mean thing that somebody put in my school paper because that's contained within a small area. Only a certain number of people will see that. But when you put it on the Internet, you are opening it up to everyone in the world." It wrecks lives, as Wired magazine details in a report about "the Internet Fury Machine".

Beyond the Schoolyard: stories of cyberbullying in Canada. (David Knight's family are suing the high school which failed to protect him from constant violence. Give 'em hell, mate, on behalf of all of us.)

False rumours spread online by a workmate drive a Korean woman to suicide

UK sites School Bully OnLine and Kidscape have lots of stuff.

Bullying explained for kids aged 6-12

As Good as Your Words?: NYT, 1998. "The studies suggest that when someone says something, good or bad, about someone else, people tend to associate that trait with the person who made the statement. So if someone calls another person dishonest, other people tend to remember the speaker as being less than honest." This presents a bit of a problem for peeps who enjoy ripping others to shreds, especially if they're hoping to make themselves look good.

Finally: I linked to this report last year, but wanted to quote this bit: The Real Scoop on Rumors and Gossip: "It doesn't necessarily matter if gossip is true or not. Its goal is to change and maintain clusters of people, either by shifting around a social structure or spreading ideas about what is normal behavior." (Or, as the Rules of the Internet put it: "Anything you say can and will be used against you. Anything you say can be turned into something else.")

ETA: New Scientist, March 2009: Some schools may be breeding grounds for teen killers: "Shootings appear more likely in schools characterised by a high degree of social stratification and low bonding and attachment between teachers and students. They provide rewards and recognition for only an elite few, and create social dynamics that promote disrespectful behaviour, bullying, and peer harassment." (Thanks for the link, lillibet!)

ETA: Stonewall UK has facts and figures on Homophobic bullying in schools. 41% of targets were cyberbullied. (You don't have to be queer to be a target; I was "Hey, lemon!" for the last two years of high school. Thanks for the link, nyssa1968!)