Coal companies pay the smallest fines of any industry for federal rules violations. The government levied a larger fine for a brief glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple during the Super Bowl in 2004 ($550,000) than it did in 2001 when 13 Alabama miners were killed in an explosion.
But just when you thought religious nuts had no sense of humor, you find out that Catholic Bishops in New Zealand called for a boycott of a TV station because it aired the "Bloody Mary" episode of South Park in which a menstruating statue of the Virgin Mary was depicted.
If priests weren't so busy buggering little boys, they might realize that like shit, menstruation happens. It's a female thing, like breasts.
And speaking of the abuse of children, at least half a million children were neglected and abused in church-run homes after World War II (Peter Wensierski's book Beaten in God's Name).
In one example, a teenager in a home run by the ironically named Catholic Sisters of Mercy, was forced to work silently in the laundry room for 10 hours a day. The nuns would beat her with broomsticks if she spoke.
And so when I heard that Hugo Chavez is expelling the missionaries from Venezuela, I applauded. Based in Florida, the evangelical group has been working there for 60 years to convert indigenous people to Xtianity. Probably teaching them how to beat their kids.
