Short ‘n’ Stubby: Snips, snaps and snark

It’s World AIDS Day, and to celebrate, Uganda’s government is mulling a bill to mandate the death penalty for gay sex. The driving influence? “Evangelicals from abroad”, according to one Anglican bishop. These same evangelicals and their parliamentary buddies are no doubt the same ones who are screaming about Hugo Chávez for not bad-mouthing Idi Amin. Hypocrites much?

BTW, Gwynne Dyer’s piece on prudishness in Africa, and how it’s costing lives, is a must-read.

It’s now official: Dubai is in deep doodoo. (Literally–among other things, they’re awash in their own shit. Despite all their expensive building projects, sewage treatment plants were rather low on the list of priorities.) They’re claiming that their debt crisis (soon to become a default) is really a “standstill”, but who’s fooling whom? The only way they’re gonna pay this one off in the end is by taking on more debt elsewhere when Abu Dhabi gets sick of sinking money into this bottomless pit. Where are the IMF and the World Bank when you need ’em? This sort of thing is right up their alley.

Oh, and get this: Dubai also claims it’s not responsible for running up its huge debts–the creditors are, for lending them the money! Chutzpah–it’s an Emirati thing, apparently.

Truthdig gets to the bottom of the US’s stupid celebrity “reality” obsessions, and comes up with a real nugget. Hint: It’s not about reality at all, unless you’re talking about the evasion thereof.

(All the same, I can’t help wondering if Tiger Woods really did crash his car at low speed because he was banging this human trainwreck. Embarrassing, but can it be helped when the episode is getting saturation coverage and even in Canada, you can’t get away from it? And WTF is this mytho-poetic shit?)

Finding Dulcinea waffles a bit about Chavecito’s sinister Maoist cloud-seeding plan, while conceding that Venezuela IS suffering from an El Niño-induced drought, and also managing not to blame that on Big Red You Know Who OR ridicule his admonitions to conserve water and hydro power. Progress nohow contrariwise, I guess.

Only in Italy do the police drive Lamborghinis–and crash them. Too much espresso, I guesso.

Argentine same-sex wedding denied! The would-be cock-blocker: A federal judge. Undeterred, the happy couple say they’ll try again tomorrow.

John Demjanjuk is trying to use his failing health to get out of being tried for crimes against humanity. One wonders if he granted any such clemency to those whom it was his job to kill on behalf of Hitler. One guesses not. (One also notes that Augusto Pinochet used a similar strategy, to great effect; he died unpunished in 2006.)

Brazil still categorically refuses to recognize the bogus election in Honduras. Lula clearly doesn’t give a shit for that old good left/bad left distinction anymore.

A former Miss Argentina gives her life to illustrate why the best thing a woman can do with her butt is buy flattering clothes and leave it the hell alone. RIP, Solange Magnano.