The new Papal Encyclical is worth checking out. I've only given it a very rough read-through, but it's an interesting text to juxtapose with Badiou's Saint Paul, which I am reading at the moment. Benedict XVI mentions Nietzsche's view that Christianity poisoned eros! A reference that I was not expecting to find. Anyway, do have a look. To whet your appetite, I leave you the following excerpt from the first section, on love, eros and agape:

Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodilines. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.

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Meanwhile, our Prime Minister is still a psychopathic biyatch - he claimed in his Australia Day speech that we have lost our sense of history due to post-modern, 'thematic', relativist accounts of history... What a nut bag. I was shocked to hear him refer to the Enlightenment in an interview on the 7:30 Report - perhaps he did a short course during his holidays?

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Hot Songz

Coldplay - Talk (Jacques Lu Cont Mix) | here is the remixer to whom I want to build false idols
Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Tiefschwarz dub)
TATU - All About Us | lesbian love has never before sounded like such a dangerous, defiant frontier! well, not since their last single... Or since The Veronicas' 4ever - oh wait, they're sisters, my mistake, I totally got the wrong impression from that film clip...
Erasure - A Little Respect | why did I not know that this song exists until last week?
Che'Nelle - The DJ | it's perfectly reasonable, ebullient dancehall - and it's from PERTH?!?
The Event - Fidelity to the Event
Royksopp - What Else is There (every single freaking remix!) | I want a new remix of this song to be released every month until the end of this year
Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches
M.I.A. - Bucky Done Gun | yes yes, I know
Astudio ft. Polina - S.O.S. | sweep me away, surging synths
Annie - No Easy Love
Freeform Five - No More Conversations (Richard X Mix)