Not the best day for humanity...

...and this time no laughing matter.

What people do to people, part I: as various papers report (this excerpt, for convenience sake, from the Guardian):

The death toll of Iraqi civilians in October was 3,709, the highest monthly total yet, and torture continued to be rampant in the country, a UN report said today. [...]

"Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the report said. "Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."

Most of the violence occurred in Baghdad, where nearly 5,000 people died in the two-month period, with many bodies bearing signs of torture and gunshot wounds.

The situation for women continued to deteriorate, with increasing numbers either victims of religious extremists or "honour killings", the UN report added.

"Some non-Muslim women are forced to wear a headscarf and to be accompanied by male relatives or spouses. Kidnappings associated with rape and sex slavery have also occurred," the report said.

Meanwhile, The New Republic, a once energetic supporter of the war, concludes:

There is no policy for Iraq that will provide moral and strategic satisfaction and no reason to believe that we might achieve something that could be plausibly described as victory. The coming debate over timetables and troop levels will likely generate much anger, shattering postelection illusions of bipartisanship and provoking intra-party squabbles. But, in the end, this struggle will be over the difference between a largely intolerable outcome and a completely intolerable one.

Which is nice of them to notice, even if other former regime-change enthusiasts, much to their credit, recognised this somewhat sooner. Of course, recognising the problem and having a solution to this 'Mesopotamian hell' are two different things.

To be honest, my own vision of what would constitute the difference between 'largely intolerable' and 'completely intolerable' has been getting murkier of late.

Speaking of which...

What people do to people part II: also as reported in the Guardian:

There are now 39.5 million living with HIV infection, according to the annual UNAIDS report, released ahead of World Aids Day on December 1, and 4.3 million of those were infected in 2006. That is 400,000 more than were infected in 2004.

Most alarming is the increased prevalence in Uganda, long held up as a showcase to the world of what could be achieved in Africa with campaigning, education and widespread condom use. The report shows a rise from a low of 5.6% infection among men and 6.9% among women in 2000 to 6.5% in men and 8.8% in women in 2004.

The reasons for the increase are not clear, but there has been a shift in the message from Uganda's leadership. Between the early 1990s and early 2000s, HIV prevalence fell sharply in major cities among pregnant women - the group most commonly monitored because they have contact with health services - as President Yoweri Museveni worked to raise awareness of the dangers of HIV and put the authority of his office behind condom use.

But in recent years the message on condoms has been diluted in favour of greater emphasis on sexual abstinence until marriage - in line with the thinking of the Bush administration, which is spending millions of dollars on HIV prevention and treatment. Critics say many women are not in a position to abstain from sex and that many are infected by their husbands.

The report says further research is needed to validate the apparent trend "but the current findings do hint at the possible erosion of the gains Uganda made against Aids in the 1990s". There is evidence of erratic condom use and more men having sex with multiple partners.

What to do? Someone knows, and - much like the Bush administration - he's working round the clock and consulting the best available scientific information in order to come to the rescue....or, well, no, maybe he still needs time to think about it a little bit:

The Vatican's office for health care has concluded a study on the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS, and the long-awaited report on it is now being examined by the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, a senior cardinal said today.

But the prelate gave no indication of the position the study takes or when a final pronouncement might be made.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health care, told a news conference on infectious diseases that the document was drafted with the help of scientists, theologians and other experts.

"We have prepared a detailed study on condoms from both the scientific and moral points of view and we have passed our study on to the Congregation for the Faith," Barragan said. "Now the dossier is being studied by that office and then it will go before the pope."

'From both the scientific and moral points of view'. Yes... Do you think that choice of words is significant? Since there's nothing more moral that prohibiting the use of a scientifically well-proven method against a deadly disease. However, if any reminder were necessary what kind of attitudes might be revised by this new report (maybe...remember, we have to consider all the moral evils of condom use...), here are comments from Katha Pollitt from a 2004 issue of The Nation:

Now it seems the Vatican is joining fundamentalist Protestants to spread the word against condoms around the globe. "To talk of condoms as 'safe sex' is a form of Russian roulette," said Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Vatican's office on the family. On the BBC Panorama program "Sex and the Holy City," Lopez Trujillo explained, "The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom." That latex has holes or pores through which HIV (or sperm) can pass is a total canard. A National Institutes of Health panel that included anti-condom advocates examined the effectiveness of condoms from just about every perspective, including strength and porosity; according to its report, released in July 2001, latex condoms are impermeable to even the smallest pathogen. [...]

It's bad enough to argue that condoms are against God's will while millions die. But to maintain, falsely, that they are ineffective in order to discourage their use is truly immoral. If not insane.

Gosh, religion seeking to contradict science. That doesn't happen very often. Does it?