According to the 2001 UK census, Jedi is the fourth largest religious belief in the country. With the "religion" growing in followers, Jedis John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law of London are calling for the United Nations Association to change the name of tomorrow's International Day of Tolerance to the UN Interstellar Day of Tolerance. They're leading a protest tomorrow in Whitehall. From the Daily Mail:

‘Like the UN, the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing our robes, and to be recognised by the national and international community...

‘Tolerance is about respecting difference where ever it lies, including other galaxies. Please don't exclude us from your important work. May the Force be with you.’

Don't tell me I have to fucking tolerate Andromeda....

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From the article...

In the 2001 UK Census 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi Knight making it the fourth biggest belief in the country.

There are also an estimated 70,000 Jedi knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand and 20,000 in Canada.

Either the UK will be the birthplace of the New Republic or British people like to give smartarse answers to religious surveys.

Either the UK will be the birthplace of the New Republic or British people like to give smartarse answers to religious surveys.

There was a campaign to accomplish this result: [link]

Clearly, Bush is not going to drift quietly into oblivion. Majikthise and Feministing report that his administration is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health. His qualifications seem to be that he's fanatical about abstinence, to the point of making stuff up.

At the Annual Abstinence Leadership Conference in Kansas, Keroack defended abstinence (in an aptly titled talk, "If I Only Had a Brain") by claiming that sex causes people to go through oxytocin withdrawal which in turn prevents people from bonding in relationships. Seriously.

[Keroack] explained that oxytocin is released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, "trust" encounters, and sexual intercourse. "It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression," he said.

But apparently if you've had sex with too many people you use up all that oxytocin: "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual." Hear that? Too many sexual partners and you'll never love again!

I know that oxytocin is thought to have a strong role in bonding, is triggered for secretion in many situations—sex, labor, lactation, etc.—but these claims that you can have permanent depletion of oxytocin levels by too much sex? Never heard of that. I hit the physiology texts in my office; no support. I tried the online databases, and hoo-boy is there a lot of stuff on oxytocin; but nothing I could find to support those claims. Keroack doesn't seem to have published anything on this subject in the peer-reviewed literature, either—the only source cited for it is something called "A Special Report from the Abstinence Medical Council". Strangely, the only instances Google turns up of this "Abstinence Medical Council" is as the publisher of this report, and as a part of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, run by Leslee Unruh, unqualified hack (and also organizer of creepy "purity balls"). I think I'm right to suspect the source is ginned-up propaganda for a quack organization.

Nice.

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I second the bonobo love.

I second the bonobo love.

I'm guessing you're not talking about the GNOME software component architecture.

Why can't we have a bonobo to run the federal reproductive health programs?

I'm guessing you're not talking about the GNOME software component architecture.

Yeah, because that just violates the laws of nature....

I know that oxytocin is thought to have a strong role in bonding, is triggered for secretion in many situations—sex, labor, lactation, etc.—but these claims that you can have permanent depletion of oxytocin levels by too much sex?

All right, putting aside for the moment that the term 'purity balls' leaves me less mature than 12, the above is not a restatement of the claim it's purporting to debunk (which could stand some debunking). The claim it's purporting to debunk is, "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual."

They're different claims. Still probably freakball, but why bring a whole new freakball into the equation (when we have purity balls t / I < 12 )?

Timelies all!

Went to sleep earlier than usual last night and that seems to have driven out the demon headache.

I have to vacuum the house because my parents are staying with us this weekend.(Family Bat Mitzvah, and they're heading to Florida afterwards.)