Friday, June 29, 2007

A woman with a twin brother has fewer children

Patriarchy in the womb? Let's see the feminists get around this one! Not that the facts bother them, of course

TWIN brothers can leave quite an impression. The mere presence of a boy in the same womb as his sister causes her to develop bigger teeth than she otherwise would. Girls with twin brothers perform better on spatial-ability tests. They have better ball skills than most females; squarer, more masculine jaws and are more likely to be short-sighted. Now it seems that sharing the womb also has a deleterious effect on the sexual reproduction of women with a twin brother.

Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield, in Britain, and her colleagues made the claim after studying detailed data from several generations of church records from many parishes in Finland. To ensure their findings were not skewed by modern health care, they confined their investigation to the years before Finns gained access both to contraception and assisted conception.

They report that women with a twin brother were 15% less likely to get married than were women with a twin sister. Those with a male twin also had a 25% lower chance of giving birth even though they lived just as long as those with a female twin. When the researchers considered only married women, those with a twin brother on average had two fewer children during their lifetimes than did women with a twin sister. And finally—to rule out any influence of sharing a house as well as a womb—Dr Lummaa checked the results were the same for women whose twin brothers died before they were three months old. They were. The researchers reported their findings in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As with the teeth and the jaw lines, the purported cause of atypical female biology is early exposure to testosterone. This hormone is made by a male fetus's developing testes from about seven weeks after conception and is thought to diffuse through the amniotic fluid, influencing his sister's growth. But the exact mechanism by which a twin brother lowers his sister's chances of reproductive success is unclear.

Lesbianism is one possibility. (To what extent is impossible to tell, because the Lutheran ministers charged with collecting exhaustive demographic details did not probe quite that far.) But physiology could also play a part. Some cancers of the reproductive system, and a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome, which reduces fertility, are more common in women with relatively high early exposure to male hormones.

Dr Lummaa's results also suggest that, if a woman wishes to maximise the chances of passing on her genes, she would do better to avoid producing pairs of twins consisting of one boy and one girl and go for a single-sex combination instead. Mothers included in the study who produced opposite-sex twins had 19% fewer grandchildren than did mothers who gave birth to same-sex twins.

Evolutionary theory thus predicts that there should be fewer pairs of girl-and-boy non-identical twins than single-sex pairs of non-identical twins. Whether that is so requires another set of figures. Finnish church records, helpful as they are, do not distinguish non-identical same-sex twins from identical ones. In the eyes of God, unlike those of natural selection, twin girls are created equal.

Source



Talk radio: Democracy at Work

Recently, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi said, "Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem." The "problem" the GOP Minority Whip was talking about is the fact that conservative radio listeners from coast to coast have been flooding his office and every other senate and congressional office with phone calls and emails stating their opposition to that flawed immigration bill they were trying to foist on the American public. What the senator seems to be against is a medium that is giving voice to millions of people who are being informed about the machinations of government and then taking a role in the dialogue that concerns their future.

It must be a painful adjustment to delude yourself into believing that you have your finger on the pulse of the national community and then become frustrated when you discover that you don't have a clue regarding what most Americans believe. Before the immigration bill is reintroduced to the Senate floor in an attempt to bring it back to life, President Bush and those senators who supported the failed effort should take into consideration the opinion of the American people (those who are here legally), inasmuch as they are the ones who put them in office. Since these elected officials are, at least ostensibly, supposed to be responding to the will of their bosses (us), they should take a peek at what a majority of us are saying.

A New York Times/CBSNews poll taken May 18-23 found that 69% of Americans believe that illegal immigrants should be prosecuted and deported; 82% of those surveyed said the federal government should be working harder to "keep illegal immigrants from crossing into this country." And according to a Rasmussen poll, by a two-to-one margin (60% to 28%), Americans set a higher priority on gaining control of the nation's borders than regularizing the status of illegal immigrants, while 75% opined that it's very important for the United States to "improve border enforcement and end illegal immigration."

Perhaps that doesn't sit well with Mr. Lott or with his colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who recently spoke to the National Council of La Raza and impugned the motives of his fellow Americans regarding the bill they don't agree with. Here was a US Senator saying the "loud people," the "bigots" who disagree with amnesty for illegal aliens should "shut up" and go away. It seems increasingly evident that some of these politicians, who ostensibly represent the people, get really upset when the people are actually heard from. They want us to believe that the failure of the bill is a sign that the system is broken. Yet, it appears that the only thing broken when it comes to our immigration debacle is the spine of those elected officials who would rather pander to lawbreakers than stand up for the overwhelming majority of their constituents who believe the law should mean something.

A few years ago, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer were overheard talking about stopping talk radio by legislation, if necessary. Undoubtedly, that was a reference to the so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that many politicians have been trying to pass for decades. It begins with the proposition that talk radio is unfair in its coverage and therefore must be regulated to ensure "fairness." Translation: talk radio has too many listeners who agree with conservative principles; hence, it must be silenced.

In the spring of 1987, both houses of Congress voted to put the Fairness Doctrine into law; a statutory inclusion which the FCC would have to enforce, like it or not. But President Reagan, in keeping with his deregulatory efforts and his long-standing belief that government should stay out of the affairs of business, vetoed the legislation. There were insufficient votes to override the veto. Congressional efforts to make the doctrine into law surfaced again during administration of George H.W. Bush. As before, the legislation was vetoed, this time by Bush.

While our pusillanimous reps are proclaiming that the system is broken because the bill was defeated, a more discerning response would have maintained that the system is working better than it was ever designed to work. The Founding Fathers could never have envisioned the Internet and the influence put forth by thousands of web logs. They couldn't have imagined a radio universe with sound waves reaching millions of human ears. We have entered a new wave of democracy, one that gives voice to the masses. Thousands of illegal aliens marched in the streets of some major cities while mouthing the implied threat to timorous politicians: "Today we march; tomorrow we vote." Now, millions of Americans are saying: "Today we blog; tomorrow we vote." It's about time someone paid attention to the majority for a change.

Source



It's impossible to satisfy "Rage Boy" and his ilk. It's stupid to try

Post lifted from Christopher Hitchens. See the original for links



If you follow the link, you will be treated to some scenes from the strenuous life of a professional Muslim protester in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar. Over the last few years, there have been innumerable opportunities for him to demonstrate his piety and his pissed-offness. And the cameras have been there for him every time. Is it a fatwah? Is it a copy of the Quran allegedly down the gurgler at Guantanamo? Is it some cartoon in Denmark? Time for Rage Boy to step in and for his visage to impress the rest of the world with the depth and strength of Islamist emotion.

Last week, there was another go-round of this now-formulaic story, when Salman Rushdie accepted a knighthood from her majesty the queen, and the whole cycle of hysteria started up again. Effigies and flags burned (is there some special factory in Karachi that churns out the flags of democratic countries for occasions like this?), wounded screams from religious nut bags, bounties raised to suborn murder, and solemn resolutions passed by notional bodies such as the Pakistani "parliament." A few months ago, it was the pope who was being threatened, and Christians in the Middle East and Muslim Asia who were actually being killed. Indeed, Rage Boy had a few yells and gibberings to offer on that occasion, too.

I have actually seen some of these demonstrations, most recently in Islamabad, and all I would do if I were a news editor is ask my camera team to take several steps back from the shot. We could then see a few dozen gesticulating men (very few women for some reason), their mustaches writhing as they scatter lighter fluid on a book or a flag or a hastily made effigy. Around them, a two-deep encirclement of camera crews. When the lights are turned off, the little gang disperses. And you may have noticed that the camera is always steady and in close-up on the flames, which it wouldn't be if there was a big, surging mob involved.

Of course, this is not to say that there isn't a lot of generalized self-pity and self-righteousness (as well as a lot of self-hatred) in the Muslim world. A minister in Pakistan's government-the son of revolting late dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, as it happens-appeared to say that Rushdie's knighthood would justify suicide bombing. But our media regularly make the assumption that the book burners and fanatics really do represent the majority, and that assumption has by no means been tested. (If it is ever tested, and it turns out to be true, then can we hear a bit less about how one of the world's largest religions mustn't be confused with its lunatic fringe?)

The acceptance of an honor by a distinguished ex-Muslim writer, who exercised his freedom to abandon his faith and thus courts a death sentence for apostasy in any case, came shortly after the remaining minarets of the Askariya shrine in Samarra were brought down in shards. You will recall that the dome itself was devastated by an explosion more than a year ago-an outrage described in one leading newspaper as the work of "Sunni insurgents," the soft name for al-Qaida. But what does "Rage Boy" have to say about this appalling desecration of a Muslim holy place? What resolutions were introduced into the "parliament" of Pakistan, denouncing such shameful profanity? You already know the answer to those questions. The lives of Shiite Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Christians-to say nothing of atheists or secularists-are considered by Sunni militants to be of little or no account. And yet they accuse those who criticize them of bigotry! And many people are so anxious to pre-empt this accusation that they ventriloquize the reactions of Sunni mobs as if they were the vox populi, all the while muttering that we must take care not to offend such supersensitive people.

This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world's Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government-along with the Israelis, of course-paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt. In front of me is a copy of this week's Economist, which states that Rushdie's 1989 death warrant was "punishment for the book's unflattering depiction of the Prophet Muhammad." There is no direct depiction of the prophet in this work of fiction, and the reverie about his many wives occurs in the dream of a madman. Nobody in Ayatollah Khomeini's circle could possibly have read the book for him before he issued a fatwah, which made it dangerous to possess. Yet on that occasion, the bookstore chains of America pulled The Satanic Verses from their shelves, just as Borders shamefully pulled Free Inquiry (a magazine for which I write) after it reproduced the Danish cartoons. Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.



PEOPLE WHO ARE DEAF AND BLIND SHOULD BE ON JURIES

Say deranged Australian "human rights" bureaucrats

The NSW Law Reform Commission and the NSW Government have shirked their responsibility to recommend the inclusion of people who are blind or deaf on NSW juries, Human Rights Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Disability Discrimination, Graeme Innes AM, said today.

Presenting the annual Sir Ninian Stephen Lecture at the University of Newcastle, Mr Innes told law students that despite the fact the Law Reform Commission was asked in 2002 to address the exclusion of people who are blind or deaf from serving on NSW juries, they have left this to gather dust. "I call on both the NSW Government and the NSW Law Reform Commission, as I have on a number of previous occasions, to act on this issue and to recommend and make the changes needed to allow people who are blind or deaf to be on juries," Mr Innes said. "I know many people who are blind or deaf who feel that they can never be totally accepted into our society as equals until they can fully carry out their responsibilities as citizens."

Mr Innes told the students the lack of progress regarding jury participation for people who are blind or deaf marred progress the NSW legal system had made in other areas such as accessibility for people with physical disabilities and hearing loops for people with hearing impairments.

In a far-ranging speech mixed with factual stories of ordinary people from his life as a lawyer in the former Department of Consumer Affairs, the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and the Equal Opportunity Commission in WA, Mr Innes told students they could make a difference in virtually every area of law. "All you have to do is remember that laws and their application are really just about people in the end," Commissioner Innes said.

The Sir Ninian Stephen Lecture was established in 1993 to mark the arrival of the first group of Bachelor of Laws students at the University of Newcastle. It is an annual event which is delivered by an eminent lawyer at the start of each academic year.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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