VATICAN CITY, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican's teaching against birth control was difficult as he praised a 1968 Church document that condemned contraception. In a speech marking the 40th anniversary of the document, Benedict reiterated the Church's ban against artificial birth control as well as more recent teaching against using artificial procreation methods. Pope Paul VI's 1968 "Humanae vitae" ("On Human Life") encyclical prohibits Catholics from using artificial birth control.

Uh...is it just me, or is the idea of the Pope riffing on sex along the same lines as me holding forth on...oh, I don't know....why God is a Green Bay Packers fan? Either way, you have the clueless attempting to convince the even more clueless of your unassailable moral rectitude on a topic you know nothing about. Why I, or anyone else for that matter, would even for a fleeting moment entertain the viewpoint of a man whose entire life is based on abstinence is beyond me. Then again, there are those willing- nay, eager- to be led regardless of the apparent lack of qualifications of those willing to do the leading.

And you wonder why I'm no fan of the Catholic Church....

Oh...and in case you missed it, the 6,666,666,666th person to inhabit this Earth was born over the weekend. There is as yet apparently no truth to the rumor that the child was named Damien and that the father was one of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I will hazard a guess that Jenna Bush was SO disappointed that she wasn't able to breathe life into the little spawn of Satan....

StopHerNow.com, the conservative Texas-based web site that has tried to derail Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign through satire and ridicule, is undergoing a sex change operation. Starting tomorrow, Stop Her Now is becoming Stop Him Now, Texas on the Potomac has learned.... "We've concluded that Hillary's lost," said [Richard H.] Collins, who has invested several hundred thousand dollars of his own money in the independent political venture that includes videos, cartoons, news links and an anti-Hillary blog. "So we're shifting our emphasis to stop-him-now.com.".... In a short while, visitors seeking to access the anti-Hillary web site will be redirected to the new site. Instead of saying it is "saving America from the radical leftist agenda of Hillary Clinton," it is now "saving America from the radical leftist agenda of Barack Obama."

Well, now that America is finally safe from the prospect of that cloest Lesbian, castrating b---h Hillary Clinton, now all we have to do is figure out how to save this country we love from that uppity house n----r Barack Obama...and it seems that Richard H. Collins is just the man for the job.

If you'd been thinking that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth phenomenon was some sort of isolated phenomenon limited to the 2004 election cycle, you might just want to pull your anterior out of your posterior. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader was able to employ "independent" purveyors of lies, character assassination, and outright propaganda to see his way to victory in 2004, and what this did was to create a model for Republicans and Right-wing nutjobs going forward. No ideas? Nothing positive to add to the public political discourse? No problem!! As long as you have friends with far more money than sense and simple human decency, you will ALWAYS be able to control the message and turn your opponent into the quivering, indecisive, child-molesting, America-hating, closeted homosexual that no red-blooded, freedom-loving American could in good conscience vote for.

It would be nice to think that this election cycle could be conducted in a manner that might make Americans proud of our democracy (After all, Cindy McCain has assured us that her husband would never stoop so low as to use negative campaigning). Unfortunately, since these so-called "527" groups are (winkwink, nudgenudge) are at least officially independent from Republican campaigns, there is little a candidate can (or will) do to stop them. Need someone to do your heavy lifting- slander, character assassination, and propaganda- for you? Want to be able to take a hands-off approach, disavow such scurrilous tactics, all while praising the flowering of American democracy? No problem, my friend. If you're a Republican willing to pander to fear and ignorance, you'll find no lack of people like Richard H. Collins- self-absorbed, self-righteous hate mongers with far more disposable income than simple human decency and a sense of fair play.

Game on, y'all...just make sure you take your boots off before coming inside....

Today is a very special day for a lot of folks...as I suppose it should be. Being a parent, though something I have no experience with (and likely never will), is a pretty special thing, and definitely worth the celebrating Mother's Day is designed to foster. For me, though, today is going to be like any other. I will "celebrate" this Mother's Day as I have so many others...by not celebrating it. Over the years, I've made numerous efforts to reconnect with my parents, only to discover that my mother really has little interest in a relationship beyond a mind-numbing discussion of the weather and her pets. I've heard through my brothers and my ex that Mom wonders why I no longer make any effort to maintain any sort of connection. Well, the answer is pretty simple, really. When I'm the only one who puts forth any effort, why would (or should) I continue trying to maintain a relationship with only one side to it?

Mom will occasionally write, and I get a Christmas card from her every year, but she seems not to recognize that I actually do have a telephone...and that it works. Then again, even on those rarest of occasions when we do talk on the phone, our conversations rarely stray from her pets and the weather in southwestern Wisconsin. I've tried over the years; I really have. At this point, I simply cannot justify the continued expenditure of emotional capital on a relationship that not only doesn't exist now...it never did.

I've long since had to come to grips with the reality that the only thing I have in common with my family is biology. I love them all, and I wish things were different, but they're not. In spite of it all, I would be willing to try to maintain some sort of relationship with my parents, if only there was the barest hint of effort and emotional involvement on the other end. At this point in my life, though, I know that this is never, ever going to happen. Wishing that things were different will not make them so.

It's on days like this that I really, truly miss having a family in my life. The truth is, though, that my family has never really ever been part of my emotional life, even when I was growing up. I've always been on my own, and now is really no different than it was when I was 18. It's just that now I'm old enough to know what I'm missing. And I do miss what I've never had.

No, it's not easy being me sometimes...but it certainly beats the alternative....

What is our magical Congress up to these days? Yesterday, they had just voted on House Resolution 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day." That's a very nice thing to do, celebrating the strategic "goals and ideals" of Hallmark this way. Then, however, some Republican asked to reconsider the vote, and 178 Republicans voted against it -- including the bill's sponsor. Was this just some procedural move, to delay the Democratic leadership's agenda? The "cynics" might say that. In truth, House Republicans just hate your mothers for producing you.

What could possibly be more American and "apple pie" than Mother's Day? Who could possibly find anything arguable in the idea of honoring mothers for giving birth to a nation of ignorant, knuckle-dragging inbreds? Who, indeed....

Then again, in yet another world-class display of your tax dollars doing their thing, House Republicans voted AGAINST a resolution honoring mothers. No, that is NOT a typo; 178 Republicans in our glorious House of Representatives voted against motherhood. As of this morning, there was as yet no word on how they would be voting on the resolution recognizing the important contributions of puppies, kittens, and apple pies.

Don't get me wrong; I understand that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), a worthy and deserving multiple DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener if ever there was one has been under a lot of stress, what with having to deal with all the myriad Republican sex scandals. Still, you'd think that he'd be able to remove his anterior from his posterior long enough to prevent this sort of embarrassment from taking place.

What's next? A resolution recognizing the contributions of Osama bin-Laden in building a strong and viable GOP?? Man, it's things like this that make me think that we might just be better off paving Washington, DC and turning it into a parking lot for Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

So, Happy Mother's Day...even if your government really does hate your mother for producing you.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama. The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility. A footnote: Support is growing in Democratic ranks for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as vice president. He would bring to the ticket maturity (66 years old), experience (six terms in Congress) and moderation (rated "A" by the National Rifle Association). He is very popular in Ohio, a state Republicans must carry to elect a president.

There was a time when I would have been thrilled with the idea of Sen. Hillary Clinton being on the Democratic ticket as the VP candidate. Then she went and launched her "scorched earth" campaign that made it clear her ONLY concern was with winning the Democratic nomination. Now I find myself hoping and praying that Sen. Barack Obama isn't dumb enough to forgive her trespasses for the sake of political expediency and victory in November. Sure, one could argue that Sen. Obama could demonstrate himself to be the bigger person by welcoming Clinton onto the Democratic ticket, but what possible edge there might be to be gained by this escapes me. HRC has been a 24-carat bitch ever since her "inevitability" disappeared like the money in her campaign's coffers. Why in the world would- and should- Sen. Obama reward her childishness and petulance? HRC has proven repeatedly that she only cares about one thing- her own self-aggrandizement. After all, the "greater good" is for losers, no?

In purely demographic terms, Clinton adds nothing to the ticket. New York will go for Obama in November, so it's not as if she's going to have the added appeal of being able to swing her home state into the Democratic column. Ted Strickland, though, is beginning to make sense. A less abrasive and high-maintenance personality than HRC, Strickland has the advantage of being the Governor of Ohio, a state that Democrats really must win in order to take back the White House. Surely, Sen. Obama can do far better than to recycle HRC and thus validate her show-no-mercy-take-no-prisoners-kill-'em-all-let-God-sort-'em-out campaign.

Hell, WE DESERVE BETTER.

I'm not at all certain how much truth there is to the idea that Michelle Obama has turned thumbs down on the idea of HRC as VP. I certainly hope this is the case, because frankly, her husband could (and by all rights, should) do a whole lot better. HRC's surliness and self-absorbed piggishness aside, installing her on the Democratic ticket would at this point do little to increase Sen. Obama's electability. She's burned so many bridges at this point that what once seemed a "dream ticket" is looking pretty nightmarish.

If I were Ms. Obama, I'd be telling HRC to pound sand, but then I tend not to forgive self-absorbed, egocentric self-interest very quickly. Were it up to me, HRC wouldn't be running for so much as Westminster City Dog Catcher. I think this would be a good time for her to spend and extended period of time wandering in the political wilderness and reaping what she's sown over the past few months.