Political Expediency v Science

John sends this:

A bill introduced by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D, NY) that attempts to end financial conflicts of interest among FDA advisory committee members passed by a vote of 218 to 210. The bill prevents the FDA from empaneling scientists with financial ties to companies whose products they are evaluating by eliminating FDA fees to such scientists.

He says that only 32 Republicans voted for the Hinchey amendment, but they included 2 medical doctors (Ron Paul and Dave Weldon) plus the 2 members with the greatest expertise on vaccine injuries (Dan Burton and Chris Shays).

The article tries to defend FDA decisions being made by scientists with obvious financial conflicts of interest. I think that scientists on an independent advisory committee be independent. We've had several bad vaccine approvals in recent years because of a lack of critical thinking on the committees.

Rosie says no breastfeeding

Malkin's blog:

Comedienne Rosie O'Donnell banned her partner Kelli Carpenter from breastfeeding their daughter Vivienne just a few weeks after she was born--because she was jealous of their bonding sessions. ... O'Donnell admits she felt left out of the motherhood process whenever she observed her partner nursing their child.

Remember this, when you hear about lesbians wanting to adopt kids.

Cats affect the brain

New British cat research:

The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country?s feline population. They show that half of Britain?s human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour.

Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the ?sex kitten? effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun- loving and possibly more promiscuous. ...

He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. ?We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked,? he said. ?However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men.?

That explains a lot. I never could trust those easy-going sexy sluts!

No Mass. spanking

From Boston news:

In April, a Plymouth, Mass., father landed on the front page of local papers and behind bars after he used a belt to spank his son Josh, 12. ...

But now, lawmakers are considering making "the willfull infliction of physical pain on children under 18," illegal. The measure would prohibit corporal punishment including whipping, spanking and pinching. Also forbidden would be washing a child's mouth out with soap and administering electric shocks.

The kids may figure out that they can get out of doing homework if they claim that it causes headaches.

Female orgasm is genetic

Here is another goofy genetic theory:

After taking into account other factors that could influence orgasm, the scientists estimated that 34 percent of the difficulty women face in reaching orgasm during intercourse is due to genes.

Problems in sexual response during masturbation seemed to be more genetically influenced than orgasm ability during intercourse. The study found that 45 percent of the difficulty women have in climaxing during masturbation can be attributed to genetic makeup.

The results were similar to those of a study on Australian twins published earlier this year.

And there are 21 different evolutionary theories for how those genes evolved.

Italian court says gay man can drive

Here is news from Sicily:

The court on the Mediterranean island said being gay was merely "a personality disturbance" which had no bearing on a person's ability to drive, Ansa news agency reported.

The 23-year-old man, who was identified as Danilo G., got into trouble with the road licence authorities in the city of Catania after they discovered he had been exempted from military service because he was gay.

The authorities suspended his driving licence ahead of further checks on his "suitability" to take the wheel.

The man's lawyer, Giuseppe Lipera, denounced the move as "utterly scandalous and offensive" and has demanded 500,000 euros in damages.

"Danilo ... is deeply perturbed by what has happened. He has lost his hair and is suffering shock," Lipera was quoted as saying by Ansa.

In a written ruling released on Monday, the Sicilian court said: "It is clear that sexual preferences do not in any way influence a person's ability to drive motor cars safely."

The judges added that homosexuality "cannot be considered a true and proper psychiatric illness, being a mere personality disturbance".

Maybe his sexual preference is not a problem, but if he is so disturbed that he is in shock and losing his hair, then he probably should not be driving.

New milk study

A new milk study says:

The researchers examined the relationship between the children's milk intake between 1996 and 1999 and their weight over a one-year period. Those who drank more than three eight-ounce servings of milk a day gained the most weight, even after the researchers took into consideration factors such as physical activity, other dietary factors and growth. The association held, even though most of the children were drinking low-fat milk.

They could not have controlled for both calories and exercise, because if they did, they would have discovered that nothing else would have found that nothing else affects weight gain.

I think that their mistake was to single out drinkers of 3 glasses of low-fat milk. Low-fat milk has a higher percentage of its calories in carbohydrates, and may be fattening like sugary sodas. A better test might be to look at kids who only drink whole milk and low-carb drinks.

Update: According to the long-term San Antonio Heart Study:

Researchers analyzed patient information spanning 26 years. They found that those who drink diet sodas were more likely to become overweight. The risk of being overweight or obese increased 65 percent more with each diet drink per day.

Go figure.

Genetic factors

NY Times says:

Q. What is the latest thinking on why there are more right-handed people than left-handed people? Is it genetic?

A. "The best thinking is that there is no genetic basis for it," said Dr. Lee Ehrman, distinguished professor of biology at Purchase College of the State University of New York, co-author of a new study in the journal Behavior Genetics, with Dr. Ira Perelle of Mercy College.

Dr. Ehrman's research, covering 12,000 people, led her to conclude that the reason for the predominance of right-handedness is that most people are born with the language-generating part of the brain primarily in the left hemisphere. Some nerve fibers from the language area cross over and direct the right side of the body, handling writing and some other learned tasks, leading to one hand's becoming dominant in these tasks.

Scientific American says:

What is really going on, asserts Oliver, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, is that "a relatively small group of scientists and doctors, many directly funded by the weight-loss industry, have created an arbitrary and unscientific definition of overweight and obesity. They have inflated claims and distorted statistics on the consequences of our growing weights, and they have largely ignored the complicated health realities associated with being fat."

One of those complicated realities, concurs Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the widely accepted evidence that genetic differences account for 50 to 80 percent of the variation in fatness within a population. Because no safe and widely practical methods have been shown to induce long-term loss of more than about 5 percent of body weight, Campos says, "health authorities are giving people advice--maintain a body mass index in the 'healthy weight' range--that is literally impossible for many of them to follow." Body mass index, or BMI, is a weight-to-height ratio.

I am skeptical when they talk about what is genetic and what is not.

Recognizing emotions

Here is some new psychology research:

Men's famous lack of emotional intelligence may have a scientific basis, according to British psychologists.

An experiment based on facial recognition at St Andrews University has concluded that a man's brain cannot pick up the facial expressions showing how his partner feels - supporting the long-held view that men are emotionally clueless.

To prove the theory, men and women were shown pictures of faces depicting a range of different feelings, from neutral to intense. The male subjects were substantially worse at spotting emotion and, as predicted, could pick up only sadness, surprise, fear, disgust and anger in the most obvious cases. ...

In the experiment, reported in the journal Cognitive Psychology this week, the researchers used pictures of actors to examine face processing in men and women aged 18 to 30. Each set of images range from zero to full- blooded emotion.

A flaw in this study is that the subjects were not detecting emotions like disgust, but rather the ability of an actor to fake disgust. It is not clear whether the men were worse at detecting emotion, or better at detecting lousy acting.

The findings make an interesting parallel with research into the abilities of people with autism - the majority of whom are male - which shows that they are weak at recognising even the most obvious clues in the human face. This has led some authorities to conclude that the condition can be described as an extreme form of maleness.

They could be weak at recognizing facial clues, or strong
at not being faked out by false clues.

Other research at the University of California has shown that men can improve on their recognition of facial emotions by learning to "mirror" what they see in others. They found that when people copied the facial expression they see in a partner, they are able to feel what the other person is feeling - a technique also recommended by experts in body language.

Some research shows that women do this more naturally than men. Observational studies suggest that when women are in conversation they empathise more than men, including adopting similar facial expressions.

Practitioners of the mirror technique are said to have included gothic horror novelist Edgar Allan Poe, although it is not known how this affected his prose.

This is too weird. It sounds to me as if the researchers cannot distinguish genuine emotion from fake emotion.

Genetic determinism

Here is new evidence that sexual behavior is genetic, and that IQ is genetic. It is funny how one is politically correct, and the other is not.

"The results are so clean and compelling, the whole field of the genetic roots of behavior is moved forward tremendously by this work," said Dr. Michael Weiss, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

All they did was to chemically induce some behavior changes in fruit flies.

For a criticism of the gay gene thoery, see this book.

Questioned women's suffrage

News from Kansas:

TOPEKA, Kan. ? A state senator who once said that giving women the vote was a symptom of weakness in the U.S. family wants to be Kansas' top elections official.

Sen. Kay O'Connor said yesterday that she is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state next year. O'Connor, 63, has served in the Legislature since 1993.

In 2001, O'Connor received national attention for her remarks about the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1920, which gave women the right to vote.

"I think the 19th Amendment, while it's not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don't approve of," she said at the time. "The 19th Amendment is around because men weren't doing their jobs, and I think that's sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family."

We would be better off if the 19A had never passed.

Feminists are crazed ideologues

An Ohio student says:

What is missing from both Ashley Herzog's article and Schlafly's critiques of feminism is a stated definition of what feminism is. It is clear from the above-cited quote (feminists tell women if they marry, their husbands will probably beat them) that both Schlafly and Herzog view feminists by their traditional stereotype: crazed, man-hating, extreme left-wing ideologues. This is a classic straw-man argument; if all feminists were crazed ideologues certainly they would alienate many women, but this is simply not the case.

Actually, feminists do alienate many women.

Airplane child safety seats

Here is an example of how an irrational child safety measure got adopted, even though it cost excessive amounts of money and actually causes more child injuries and deaths.

No prostitute teachers

Oregon public schools do not hire teachers who have been convicted of sex crimes, and the law applies to both men and women. Some people think that this is unfair, because California allows (female) prostitutes to teach school.

Women profit from divorce

John sends this Wash. Times story, and compares it to the widely discredited Lenore Weitzman research.

Women 'worse off' when couples part...

But nearly 30 percent of girlfriends and nearly 38 percent of wives lived in poverty after their relationships failed. The researchers said both wives and girlfriends tend to have lower incomes than their partners and when couples separate, women have less to live on.
Moreover, wives and girlfriends are more likely to have custody of the children, which means more mouths to feed with less income.

Without even looking at the study, I have several problems with it. First, it is based on 20-year-old data, so it does not reflect the high spousal and child support formulas that the states have adopted since then.

Second, the notion that women are "worse off" would not follow from such a study. Suppose a gold digging woman moves in with rich man, or marries. Later, she regrets it, and leaves him. Her income will drop when she leaves him, but she would undoubtedly say that she is better off without him, not worse off.

Studies have shown again and again that it is usually the woman who terminates a marriage or other romantic relationship, and that women consistently make choices that make them better off with less income. Eg, see Warren Farrell's recent book, Why Men Earn More.

Third, it suggests that women are worse off for having to take the kids. In fact, wives usually demand those kids and take them over their husbands' objections. They are taking the kids because they want the kids and they believe that they will be better off with the kids. Furthermore, under current child support formulas, women usually make a profit on the kids. They receive child support that is over and above what it actually costs to raise the kids, and the moms are allowed to spend the child support money on themselves.

So this study is surely just feminist propaganda.

Black parents spank

Here is another goofy anti-spanking argument:

Poussaint, who was a consultant for NBC's "The Cosby Show," says studies show that about 80 percent of parents in the African-American community use corporal punishment. "Despite that, you have very high crime rates, very high rates of violence, very high rates of incarceration. That should be enough of a message that (corporal punishment) doesn't work."

The same reasoning would say that the incarceration doesn't work either.

Here is an anti-spanking zealot who believes that it is wrong to ever hit a child (under the age of 18). He has to struggle hard with the question of whether self-defense is acceptable.

One Nation Under Therapy

I recommend the new book, One Nation Under Therapy -- How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance. More info here. It is an excellent book on the evils of therapism, and documents research studies that show how psychotherapy often makes people worse off. One of the co-authors was just a guest on Tucker Carlson's TV show.

The authors say:

We challenge the brain disease model on the grounds that treating addicts as morally respon-sible, self-determining human beings free to change their behavior is, in the end, more effective, more respectful, and more compassionate.

We also reject therapism's central doctrine that uninhibited emotional openness is essential to mental health. On the contrary, recent findings suggest that reticence and suppression of feelings, far from compromising one's psychological well-being, can be healthy and adaptive. For many temperaments, an excessive focus on introspection and self-disclosure is depressing. Victims of loss and tragedy differ widely in their reactions: some benefit from therapeutic intervention; most do not and should not be coerced by mental health professionals into emotionally correct responses. Trauma and grief counselors have erred massively in this direction.

BTW, Carlson usually has some left-wing political commentator on, but he should be able to find someone better. This time he had Richard Cohen (of the Wash. Post) saying that Bill Clinton had more of a mandate than G.W. Bush. Clinton won with 43% and 49% of the votes, and Bush won with 49% and 51%. The last Democratic president to get more was in 1964.

Bob also recommends Manufacturing Victims: What The Psychology Industry Is Doing To People.

Alabama May Ban Unhealthy Food in Schools

Here is another attempt to ban junk food:

Alabama May Ban Unhealthy Food in Schools

...a health and nutrition committee told the state school board Thursday that the changes -- such as banning the sale of sodas during school hours and cracking down on waivers exempting students from gym -- are crucial to raising healthy young people. ...

Other recommendations presented to the board included: ...

Restrict consumption of high-sugar, low nutrition foods except when they are medically necessary.

I doubt that the committee has any idea what foods are healthy and what are not. There is no such thing as a "high-sugar, low nutrition food".

British medicos want knife control

Some Brits want to ban sharp knives:

The authors of an editorial in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal have called for knife reform. The editorial, "Reducing knife crime: We need to ban the sale of long, pointed kitchen knives," notes that the knives are being used to stab people as well as roasts and the odd tin of Spam. ...

Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports gun control, joked, "Can sharp stick control be far behind?" He said people in his movement were "envious" of England for having such problems. "In America, we can't even come to an agreement that guns are dangerous and we should make them safer," he said.

Yeah, he probably envies the high violent crime rate in Britain that resulted from a gun ban and the lack of a right to self-defense.

Mutant children are best

The UK Sun reports:

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster has spawned a generation of ?mutant? super-brainy children.

Kids growing up in areas damaged by radiation from the plant have a higher IQ and faster reaction times, say Russian doctors.

They are also growing faster and have stronger immune systems.

I think that someone is taking Darwinism too seriously.

Judge tries to control religious upbringing

Another out-of-control family court:

An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

The parents practice Wicca, a contemporary pagan religion that emphasizes a balance in nature and reverence for the earth.

Cale J. Bradford, chief judge of the Marion Superior Court, kept the unusual provision in the couple's divorce decree last year over their fierce objections, court records show. The order does not define a mainstream religion.

Judges seems to think that they can override the wishes of the parents just because there is a divorce. That is wrong, and ought to be unconstitutional. Parents have the right to raise their kids as they wish, whether they are married or divorced.

Pill is a turn-off

Pill news:

The contraceptive pill, celebrated for liberating women's sexuality, may do the opposite, according to American researchers who have warned that women who take the Pill may experience a permanent decline in sexual desire.

Loss of libido is a well-known side-effect of oral contraceptives in some women and is listed in the leaflet on the contraceptive pill handed out by the Family Planning Association. But the research suggests the effect might be long-lasting or even permanent.

It sounds dubious to me, but it could explain a lot.

HBV causes excess male births

A rogue economist says:

Sen claimed that there were some 100 million "missing women" in Asia. While the ratio of men to women in the West was nearly even, in countries like China, India, and Pakistan, there were far more men than women. Sen charged these cultures with gravely mistreating their young girls?perhaps by starving their daughters at the expense of their sons or not taking the girls to doctors when they should have. Although Sen didn't say so, there were other sinister possibilities. Were the missing women a result of selective abortions? Female infanticide? A forced export of prostitutes?

It turns out that half of these supposedly missing women can be explained by a side-effect of hepatitis B.

Child bathtub accidents

NY Times says:

Writing this month in the journal Clinical Pediatrics, researchers from the Columbus Children's Hospital in Ohio said that when they looked at bathtub injuries over three years, falls caused by slipping were the most common. And four out of five times, an adult was present.

I wonder if anyone has looked at the possibility that a mom's supervision actually increases bathtub accidents. The child may have a false sense of security by having his mom nearby, and not be sufficiently motivated to take safety precautions.

Women wear wrong bras

This says:

According to a national fit study by Wacoal, eight out of ten women in the U.S. -- or nearly 90 million women over the age of 18 -- are wearing the wrong size bra. ...

Smith recommends that women get fitted once per year or whenever they gain or lose five or more pounds, start or stop an exercise program, become pregnant, and after giving birth.

I figure that it is going to take at least 10,000 man-years of labor to do all those fittings.

Sunshine prevents cancer

New research suggests that sunshine prevents cancer:

In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer.

No one is suggesting that people fry on a beach. But many scientists believe that "safe sun" - 15 minutes or so a few times a week without sunscreen - is not only possible but helpful to health.

"I would challenge anyone to find an area or nutrient or any factor that has such consistent anti-cancer benefits as vitamin D," Giovannucci told the cancer scientists. "The data are really quite remarkable."

The pills don't work. You need sunlight.

100 million prescriptions for Vicodin

Last night, on his own network TV show, Dr. Phil said:

In fact, over half of the American population got a prescription for Vicodin last year. That is over 100 million people. As outrageous as it is true, most narcotics can now be obtained without a doctor's prescription.

The screen showed the text: "100 million Americans obtained prescriptions for Vicodin in 2004."

Half the American population would be more like 145M people. But never mind that. Maybe he is counting adults. I didn't believe that so many people got Vicodin prescriptions. Millions more are using the stuff nonmedically.

I just got a Vicodin prescription for my broken leg, but I thought that it was only prescribed for such extreme conditions. Vicodin is a DEA schedule III narcotic.

Readers against fatherphobia

Phyllis writes:

I've just had a chance to count the emails in response to my 4 columns on fathers:

258 - supportive -- mostly dads saying "you described my situation perfectly." Dozens of heartbreaking stories.
9 - hostile
6 - urging me to see both sides of the question because some dads are slobs.
1 - suggesting that my support of fathers is inconsistent with my support of homemakers -- from a bitter feminist who is still mad about my defeating ERA. Somehow it escapes some people that the role of fulltime homemaker is dependent on a husband-father to pay the bills. Unless you are a feminist who thinks the government should provide babysitting.

The above count contrasts sharply with the email response about my evolution column. Those emails were 95% against me.

Phyllis Schlafly is famous for advocating the rights and benefits of (female) homemakers, so there was the possibility that some people would be surprised or offended that she would also advocate an important role for fathers as well.

There is a truly evil anti-father system that has crept into our laws, courts, and govt agencies. Her columns on the subject explain it well. Something desperately needs to be done about it.

Be All That You Can Be

The US Army has fallen short of its recuitment goals, and some people are suggesting that more girls be recruited.

One reader suggests that this is exactly backwards. The slogan is "Be All That You Can Be", and some boys may figure that they cannot be all that they can be in co-ed training and warfare.

There ought to be some quantitative studies on just how girls affect army recruitment.

Father acquitted in paddling of son

News from Ohio:

NEWARK -- Jason Klein and the Rev. Russ Hylton are calling for less government intervention when it comes to disciplining children.

Discipline should be left up to parents, they say.

A jury in Licking County Municipal Court found Klein innocent of a domestic violence charge on May 9. The first-degree misdemeanor charge followed an incident on Nov. 21, when Klein spanked his son, Storm Klein, then 13, with a wooden paddle.

Jason Klein, 36, of Newark, said he spanked his son because he found out he was drinking alcohol. He claims the spanking was a disciplinary measure, and government shouldn't be allowed to tell parents how to raise their children.

"I don't think they should have the right at all," the father of six said. "I think it oversteps the boundary of government." ...

Hylton, a pastor at Crossroads Worship Centre in Newark, where the Klein family attends, believes in spanking as a form of punishment. It helps mold a child into a productive citizen, he said.

He referenced disciplining to the idea in the Bible: "Spare the rod, spoil the child." ...

Storm, a student at Licking Valley Middle School, said he doesn't believe the spanking case should have gone this far.

"I got punished and felt I deserved it," he said.

This is a good example of the need for jury trials. The average person understands child-rearing better than the judges, prosecutors, psychologists, and social service agencies.

The Phantom Menace was not a flop

This NRO review of the new Star Wars movie says:

it wasn't until 1999 that Episode One, The Phantom Menace, appeared, and immediately flopped. A fan of the series told me how he and a friend attended a different movie just in order to catch a trailer for Phantom Menace. They were stunned; "We just couldn't believe how bad it was," he said. It was a bad sign. Just about everybody hated Phantom Menace. It seemed shallow and silly, and squandered the capital previous films had built up.

It would be hard to be more wrong. That movie was the 4th biggest money-grossing movie of all time.

One-night stands

A Cosmopolitan magazine poll found:

Almost two-thirds of women have had a one-night stand, but nearly all of them regret it, a survey has found.

In contrast, men rarely have qualms about brief sexual encounters, and just under half say that no-strings sex is better than that enjoyed in a relationship. ...

But 40 per cent of men say they would have a one-night stand any time and 49 per cent would never regret it.

I'll add this to the list of differences between men and women. As for myself, I am in the 51% of the male population that might possibly regret a one-night stand.

Evolution theorizing

The NY Times has lots of evolutionist theorizing. Now, it is on Kansas science, gay genes, and female orgasms.

What is notable here is that the evolutionists seem so sure of their arguments, and so sure that others are wrong, and yet there is a dearth of any empirical support for their views or even any way of testing their hypotheses.

Steve Pinker is impressed by a study that homosexual men are attracted to male scents (and alleged pheromones) in a manner similar to women.

The difference in the brain responses of gay and straight men does not, by itself, prove that homosexuality is innate; after all, learned inclinations, like innate ones, must reside somewhere in the brain. But in this case nature probably does trump nurture. Gay men generally report that their homosexual attractions began as soon as they felt sexual stirrings before adolescence. ...

I don't see how this is any evidence at all. First, people are likely to self-report feelings in a way to validate their current lifestyle, and may not even remember those feelings. Second, it may be that sex role identifications start to form during adolescence or even shortly before, but would not be evidence for any sort of innate or genetic orientation.

There are 21 theories about the female orgasm. Most of the arguments are silly. I don't know what is wrong with the obvious evolutionistic argument -- that if women seek pleasure from sexual relations, then they are likely to have more offspring.

Affirmative action for smart rich women

Malkin reports:

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, under fire for comments on women in the sciences, said the school would spend $50 million over 10 years to promote diversity on its faculty and reform the way women in science and engineering are treated.

I guess that Harvard has decided that female scientists cannot cut it on their own, and need a big affirmative action program. This is going to hurt the credibility of academic women.

Alternative lifestyles

This AP story says HHS caved in to gay pressure.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government has changed its Web site advising parents how to talk to their children about sex after several groups said it presented biased and inaccurate information.

The site received about 5 million hits in its first month of operation. In recent days, the section on sexual orientation was changed to address some of the concerns voiced by the gay rights community.

For example, the term "alternative lifestyle" was replaced with "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lifestyle," which addressed the concern that the Bush administration was labeling sexual orientation as choice.

In addition, the portion telling parents of gay children to consider seeing a family therapist who shares their values was changed to say "counselors and other health professionals may be helpful to both teens and parents when addressing difficult issues." ...

Golden said focus groups helped the department develop the Web site, which stresses abstinence, and that some of the concerns surprised her because they did not set off alarm bells in the focus groups. For example, she cited the phrase "alternative lifestyle," and said, "We were not aware that was an area of sensitivity."

I wasn't aware of that either. Are there really people who proudly describe their "gay lifestyles", but are offended by the term "alternative lifestyles"? Homosexuality certainly is an alternative lifestyle, whether it is a choice or not.

Impotent husband must pay damages

News from Italy:

An Italian man who married without telling his bride he was impotent must pay damages for abusing her "right to sexuality", a top court has ruled.

The man had failed to fulfil his conjugal duty and deprived his wife of the chance to be a mother, Italy's Supreme Court said.

His wife had already had the marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.

The amount of damages will now be decided by a lower court in Sicily.

Kingdom of Heaven

Hollywood is complaining about declining attendance for big-budget movies likes Kingdom of Heaven and Alexander. I saw Ridley Scott interviewed on TV. He said that Kingdom of Heaven was made by agnostics and that the message of the movie is "tolerance".

No wonder the movie is a flop. Here is the story of one of the grand historical battles between Good and Evil, and the director cannot even figure out who the good guys are.

Unscientific brain theories

Today's Dear Abby says:

DEAR ABBY: In a recent column you advised the mother of a girl who had confided that she is gay and wants to come out, that homosexuality has "nothing to do with parenting and everything to do with genetics." You need to retract that statement. If you do not publicly admit your error, I will know you are a mouthpiece for the gay and lesbian crowd. -- LEONARD IN LYNCHBURG

DEAR LEONARD: If I did not believe with all my heart that what I wrote is true, I wouldn't have put my thoughts on paper. ...

Besides giving bad advice, I guess Dear Abby is indeed a mouthpiece for the gay and lesbian crowd.

This WSJ blog points out how politically correct scientists eagerly jump to extremes in the nature-nuture debate. Sometimes they assume that things are 100% environmental, and sometimes they assume that they assume 100% genetics. It is driven by politics.

Federal Incentives Make Children Fatherless

Phyllis Schlafly has another column on fathers: Federal Incentives Make Children Fatherless.

Previous columns on related subjects were Children Made Fatherless By Family Courts, The Fatherphobia Of Family Courts, and The Price Some Reservists Have To Pay.

Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs

I spent 4 years in the Berkeley math dept, but I don't remember the Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs. There were some faculty affairs and other vices, and some profs had couches in their offices, but no designated vice chair.

Healthy to eat fat

Wired magazine says:

Diets too low in fat may be responsible for stubborn bulges on bellies, thighs and butts, according to a new study.

Dieters trying slim down by following extremely low-fat diets may be causing the exact opposite results, according to new research from the Washington University in St. Louis. Eating at least small amounts of dietary fats, such as fish oils, might be a better way to kick-start fat-burning, say researchers.

Fat is an essential part of a healthy diet. Even fat people should eat fat, as the Atkins folks have been correctly saying for years. Don't let anyone tell you that some food is bad just because it has fat in it.

Real estate maps

If in the market for a house, be sure to check HousingMaps.com before you talk to a broker. It combines Google maps with Craigslist house listings.

Pollution or global warming

Nature says:

Our planet's air has cleared up in the past decade or two, allowing more sunshine to reach the ground, say two studies in Science this week.

Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.

That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.

So next time you hear someone wanting to reduce air pollution, point out that he will be causing global warming.

Evolution in Kansas

The NY Times reports about the Kansas school board questioning evolution:

The proposed changes to the state's science standards would edit everything from the introduction to notes advising teachers on specific benchmarks for individual grades. Perhaps the most significant shift would be in the very definition of science - instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

It is amazing that such a simple change in a definition would warrant such an attack by the NY Times and the evolutionist cabal. I think that the latter definition of science is a much better one.

The Wash. Post says:

Local and national science organizations are so disturbed by the proceedings that they are boycotting them, apart from advising Pedro Irigonegaray, a civil rights and defense lawyer recruited to defend the existing Kansas science standards. On the eve of the hearings, he predicted a "whitewash" but said he would fight it nonetheless.

Thursday's scene bore a resemblance to the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn., in which a high school science teacher was famously convicted of violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution. Despite the conviction, the nationally covered trial represented a triumph for the teaching of evolution.

Bruce Chapman, a former Reagan administration Census Bureau director, said, "This is the Scopes trial turned on its head."

It is just like the Scopes Trial in that the evolutionists also refused to stand up and defend their beliefs at that trial. In essence, Darrow had Scopes plead guilty rather than defend evolution on the merits.

Bob asks why I would side with creationists on an issue like this.

I am not going to side with so-called scientists who will not defend their beliefs. They are giving Science a bad name. The Kansas skeptics have a better definition of science. They are not wrong just because they goto church on Sunday. If the so-called scientists think that the new definition is wrong, then they should be able to explain why it is wrong. Instead they avoid the issue and conduct a character assassination.

Bob writes:

The issue is not what scientists believe. There is a political debate in Kansas over whether evolution and certain criticisms of evolution should be taught in public schools. There are no scientific arguments again evolution. Definitions of science are of interest to philosophers, lawyers, and politicians. What purpose would it server for scientists to participate in a kangaroo court proceeding like the Kansas State Department of Education hearing? A majority of Americans manage to go to church on Sunday, are not opposed to teaching evolution, and are too busy leading productive lives and spending time with their families to keep an eye on the creationists who have taken over the Kansas State Board of Education. I predict that the creationists will wither in the sunlight just as they did after their excursion in 1999 when they were thrown out of office by the voters of Kansas.

Bob also sent this Kansas opinion column complaining some of those testifying lacked scientific credential! If he really thinks that definitions of science are of interest to philosophers, lawyers, and politicians, then I guess that he should be happy that those are the ones who are debating the definitions in Kansas.

Anti-evolution comic

Here is an anti-evolution B.C. comic. There are criticisms here.

New books on economics and life

Wired magazine has a couple of article from people plugging interesting new books.

Cracking the Real Estate Code

Consider this true story, related by John Donohue, a law professor who in 2001 was teaching at Stanford University: "I was just about to buy a house on the Stanford campus, and the seller's agent kept telling me what a good deal I was getting because the market was about to zoom. As soon as I signed the purchase contract, he asked me if I would need an agent to sell my previous Stanford house. I told him that I would probably try to sell without an agent, and he replied, 'John, that might work under normal conditions, but with the market tanking now, you really need the help of a broker.'"

Sure enough, when real estate brokers sell their own houses, they do things differently from what they would do for you. The book is Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

This article says that kids are getting smarter by playing video games. The book is here.

FDA bans gay sperm

The FDA is banning gay sperm, but:

The FDA rules do not prohibit gay men from serving as "directed" sperm donors. If a woman wishing to become pregnant knows a gay man and asks that he provide sperm for artificial insemination, a clinic could provide that service even if the man had engaged in sex with other men within five years.

However, Traiman said some lesbian couples do not have a gay friend they know and trust well enough to be the biological father of their child, and would thus prefer an anonymous donor.

Dr. Deborah Cohan, an obstetrics and gynecology instructor at the University of California, San Francisco, said some lesbians prefer to receive sperm from a gay donor because they feel such a man would be more receptive to the concept of a family headed by a same-sex couple.

"This rule will make things legally more difficult for them," she said. "I can't think of a scientifically valid reason -- it has to be an issue of discrimination."

So if a lesbian wants gay sperm and not hetero sperm for political reasons, that is okay, but if a woman prefers hetero sperm for health reasons, then that is "discrimination". Yes, it is discrimination either way, but women ought to be discriminating about who inseminates them.

Gore credited for internet

John sends this Newsday article:

NEW YORK -- Al Gore may have been lampooned for taking credit in the Internet's development, but organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements don't find it funny at all.

In part to "set the record straight," they will give Gore a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet, said Tiffany Shlain, the awards' founder and chairwoman. ...

Gore, who boasted in a CNN interview he "took the initiative in creating the Internet," was only 21 when the Internet was born out of a Pentagon project.

But after joining Congress eight years later, he promoted high-speed telecommunications for economic growth and supported funding increases for the then-fledging network, according to the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which presents the annual awards.

He popularized the term "information superhighway" as vice president.

Until today, Snopes said:

many of the components of today's Internet came into being well before Gore's first term in Congress began in 1977, and it's hard to find any specific action of Gore's (such as his sponsoring a Congressional bill or championing a particular piece of legislation) that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being, much less validate Gore's statement of having taken the "initiative in creating the Internet. ... Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today.

What isn't said is how much Gore did to restrict the free and secure flow of information on the internet. He supported crypto export controls that limited the utility of SSL, and he supported govt key escrow plans. I think that the internet would have been better off without him.

Dinosaur missing link

Here is dinosaur evolution news:

The recently discovered species of dinosaurs, called Falcarius utahensis, had legs built for speed like meat-eaters but it also had a wide pelvis designed for the longer gut common in vegetarian animals that ferment plants.

Falcarius and Velociraptors shared a common, yet-undiscovered ancestor, said study co-author Scott Sampson, a paleontologist and curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History.

"With Falcarius, we have actual fossil evidence of a major dietary shift, certainly the best example documented among dinosaurs," Sampson said in a release. "This little beast is a missing link between small-bodied predatory dinosaurs and the highly specialized and bizarre plant-eating therizinosaurs."

No one knows what killed off the buried dinosaurs, but scientists say drought, volcanic eruptions, fire and botulism poisoning are all possibilities.

Notice how evolutionists always think that there is an undiscovered common ancestor, and that find a few new bones is frequently some sort of missing link.

Notice also the list possible causes of death. If the scientists cannot distinguish those possibilities, then they know nothing about the death. But the evolutionists just don't want to admit that dinosaurs might have died in a great flood.

A Textbook Case of Junk Science

This Pamela R. Winnick article says:

Several centuries ago, some "very light-skinned" people were shipwrecked on a tropical island. After "many years under the tropical sun," this light-skinned population became "dark-skinned," says Biology: The Study of Life, a high-school textbook published in 1998 by Prentice Hall, an imprint of Pearson Education.

"Downright bizarre," says Nina Jablonski, who holds the Irvine chair of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. Jablonski, an expert in the evolution of skin color, says it takes at least 15,000 years for skin color to evolve from black to white or vice versa. That sure is "many years." The suggestion that skin color can change in a few generations has no basis in science.

Pearson Education spokesperson Wendy Spiegel admits the error in describing the evolution of skin color, but says the teacher's manual explains the phenomenon correctly. Just why teachers are given accurate information while students are misled remains unclear.

It seems clear to me. Evolution is taught in a distorted way in order to reinforce certain political propaganda messages. In this case, leftist egalitarians want to force schoolkids to think that evolution proves that racial differences are insignificant.

Dr. Spock on spanking

I saw anti-spanking fanatic Jordan Riak on Fox News a few days ago. The last edition of Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care said:

There are several reasons to avoid physical punishment. It teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right. Some spanked children then feel quite justified in beating up on smaller ones. The American tradition of spanking may be one reason there is much more violence in our country than in any other comparable nation.

It is a fact that the larger, stronger person usually has the power to get his way. Yes, children should learn that message. No, it does not explain violent crime in America.

Tax money promoting sodomy

Alabama is threatening to stop buying pro-sodomy books for its public library. The usual gang of idiots is all upset. It is amazing how some people think that Alabama should be using tax money to support practices that the people think should be illegal or immoral.

Here is NY Times letter:

To the Editor:

Re "Prosecutor Seeks to End Time Limit in Rape Cases" (news article, April 29):

The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, is right to call for eliminating the statute of limitations in rape cases. There is no statute of limitations for murder because society understands that murder is so serious a crime that a perpetrator should never go free simply because five or more years have passed since the offense. The same is true of rape, a crime that can destroy or derail lives.

The availability and absolute reliability of DNA evidence only underscore the need to amend this law, which makes it impossible in many cases to prosecute those who are indisputably guilty of truly heinous crimes.

Sonia Ossorio
President, National Organization for Women
New York, April 30, 2005

No, this is crazy. Murder is a vastly more heinous crime. After 5 years, the murdered body is still dead.

When there is a dead body, there is rarely any doubt as to whether a crime was committed. Rape cases usually depend on the believability of the alleged victim. Imagine how difficult it would be to try Kobe Bryant after 5 years.

Pilots are unarmed

Andy send this story:

The pistol-packing pilot was supposed to be the last line of defense against a terrorist who managed to get into a cockpit.

But now, more than two years after Congress sanctioned a training program to deputize aviators and allow them to carry guns in the cockpit, it's believed that only about 5,000--a little more than 5 percent of the estimated 95,000 commercial pilots in the country--are armed while they fly.

Pilot advocacy groups say there's a pent-up demand of as many as 40,000 pilots willing to arm themselves, but they charge that the Bush administration has deliberately undermined the program by making training inconvenient and insisting on an awkward protocol for transporting weapons.

Transportation Secy Mineta is usually blamed for sabotaging this important security program.

616 is the number of the beast

This story claims:

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

Until this is resolved, I'll just have to look out for both numbers!

Nanny makes a bad mistake

If a man is a sex offender, then people want to send him away for 30 years. This story tells of a nanny named Sarah Slicker who got convicted of being a pedophile, but gets sympathy. I think that the attitude of the gynecologist mom is a little strange.

Men's rights activists

Here is a feminist blog complaining about men's rights activists. It has some useful links to some different points of view.

Finding brides in Kyrgyzstan

Feminism hasn't reached this country:

More than half of Kyrgyzstan's married women were snatched from the street by their husbands in a custom known as "ala kachuu," which translates roughly as "grab and run." In its most benign form, it is a kind of elopement, in which a man whisks away a willing girlfriend. But often it is something more violent.

Recent surveys suggest that the rate of abductions has steadily grown in the last 50 years and that at least a third of Kyrgyzstan's brides are now taken against their will. ...

Kyrgyz men say they snatch women because it is easier than courtship and cheaper than paying the standard "bride price," which can be as much as $800 plus a cow. ...

Many women fight fiercely, but about 80 percent of those kidnapped eventually relent, often at the urging of their own parents. ...

Brutal as the custom is, it is widely perceived as practical. "Every good marriage begins in tears," a Kyrgyz saying goes. ...

"I was angry and I felt betrayed," Ms. Tairova said, adding that she had cried the whole day.

But as with many Kyrgyz women, she eventually accepted her fate. She since has reconciled with her in-laws and says she is happy with her husband now.

"He says he had to kidnap me because he heard someone else was trying to kidnap me first," she said. "He's a good man."

American women could learn something.

fat people go crazy

Here is a new story on the dangers of fat:

Research links fat, dementia

LONDON [AP] — The most convincing research so far suggests that being fat in your 40s might raise your risk of developing dementia later in life.

In a study that followed more than 10,000 Californians for almost 30 years, researchers found that the fatter people were, the greater their risk for Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. The results were published online today by the British Medical Journal. ...

The data showed that roughly seven out of 100 normal-weight people developed dementia. Among overweight people, the risk was almost eight out of 100; and for obese people, it was nine out of 100.

I am surprised that they are so quick to say that the obesity causes the dementia; I think that it is more likely that the dementia causes the obesity. In most cases, obesity is a symptom of a malfunctioning brain.

Wife has paranoid delusions

A letter to Dear Abby describes a woman with paranoid delusions about intruders in the house. She gets her 11-year-old daughter paranoid as well, and nags her husband to death about it. Her husband tries to make light of the situation, or deflect the blame. Dear Abby advises:

DEAR COWARDLY: Your husband's behavior is cruel and unwise. He's encouraging your daughter's fears as a way of punishing you for your forgetfulness. If it continues, your daughter will have phobias that could last a lifetime; it's mental cruelty.

I'm not sure who is nuttier -- Dear Abby or the letter writer. If my wife announced that she heard a strange noise and that there must be an intruder in the house, I might take her seriously the first five times or so. I would eventually decide that my wife suffers from paranoid delusions.

Repo man kidnaps child

This story

Hartwell, OH, Apr. 27 (UPI) -- A "repo man" accidentally repossessed a 2-year-old girl Wednesday when he reclaimed a truck at a Hartwell, Ohio, gas station.

A repo man takes a pick-up truck and kidnaps a sleeping child, while the parents had stopped at a gas station. So what happens?
The child is recovered safely and the father has been charged with child ndangerment! The repo man was not charged.

Is there some law against letting your child sleep in a vehicle if you are behind on your loan payments? Why charge the dad and not the mom? Is that because the dad is being blamed for missing the payment? These cases should not be criminalized.

Woman convicted of rape

Here is news from Norway:

Woman convicted of rape

In a landmark case a 23-year-old woman has been convicted by a Bergen court for the rape of a 31-year-old man.

The woman was sentenced to nine months in prison and ordered to pay NOK 40,000 (USD 6,385) to the man.

The incident occurred on Jan. 4 last year in a Bergen apartment. The man testified that he fell asleep on a sofa and woke up to find the woman performing oral sex on him.

The woman eventually admitted sexual contact but claimed that it was voluntary and that the man was willing and smiled.

The case has attracted attention and is the first time a Norwegian woman has been charged with raping a man.

It is the logical consequence of feminist demands for sex-neutral laws and over-criminalizing rape.

Here is some other wacky feminist news from Norway.

Schwarzenegger quotes Einstein

I just watched Arnold Schwarzenegger on Fox News say:

Einstein said that the same people who created the problem cannot fix it.

That must be some law of physics that got omitted from my textbooks.

Mexicans eat bugs and worms

John sends this story:

The changes are proving lethal. More than 50 percent of Mexican women have body-mass indexes of 25 or more, an indicator of being overweight, Bourges said. The obesity rate here is the same as in the United States, he added.

"It's partly a problem of globalization," Bourges said. "Their habits were excellent before."

In the Mexican countryside, for example, insects are a common source of protein. At a dinner at the famed restaurant Izote, run by chef and author Patricia Quintana, conference participants from the U.S. sampled fried maguey worms, which look a bit like ruffled french fries, and ant eggs, or escamole, which resemble barley. ...

"To anybody who pays taxes in the States," Gifford said, "the consequences of the health problems of urbanized Latinos to the American taxpayers is just going to be punishing."

So Mexicans don't want to eat bugs and worms anymore, and America is to blame.

Racism does not explain differences

Tom Sowell writes in the WSJ:

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both. ...

What then could explain such large disparities in demographic "representation" among these three groups of blacks? Perhaps they have different patterns of behavior and different cultures and values behind their behavior. ...

Disparities between Southern whites and Northern whites extended across the board from rates of violence to rates of illegitimacy. American writers from both the antebellum South and the North commented on the great differences between the white people in the two regions. So did famed French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville.

None of these disparities can be attributed to either race or racism. Many contemporary observers attributed these differences to the existence of slavery in the South, as many in later times would likewise attribute both the difference between Northern and Southern whites, and between blacks and whites nationwide, to slavery. But slavery doesn't stand up under scrutiny of historical facts any better than race or racism as explanations of North-South differences or black-white differences.

I think that it is amazing that Harvard can give an assortment of lofty justifications for affirmative action, and then fill its black admissions quota with students from Africa and the West Indies.

College potty parity

Here is the toliet news:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- It's being called potty parity. The nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District has pledged to add more women's bathroom stalls across its campuses as part of a $2.2 billion construction program. The move calls for four bathroom stalls for every 50 women and one for every 50 men. That compares with state ratios of three for every 50 women and one for every 100 men.

No, it is not potty parity. It is discrimination in favor of girls, by a factor of 4. Where is Title IX enforcement?

Arnold blames the Moon

Our governor joked:

Schwarzenegger explained, "If we get rid of the moon, women, whose menstrual cycles are governed by the moon, will not get PMS. They will stop bitching and whining."

Before, he just complained about the girlie men.

More college girls than boys

Andy sends this Maine story:

In 1969, 4 million men and 2.9 million women were enrolled as undergraduates at colleges and universities across the country. By 2000, the number of male undergrads had risen 39 percent, to 5.6 million, but the number of female undergrads had leaped upward 157 percent, to 7.4 million. ...

There are 130,000 more women than men at public and private colleges in the region today, according to the New England Board of Higher Education, which addresses the issue in the April edition of its magazine The Connection.

The University of Maine System, which enrolls 74 percent of the state's public higher education students, has 21,480 women compared with 12,773 men. For the past 10 years at least, enrollment for women has exceeded that of men at all seven campuses. ...

Maine leads the nation in the low rate of men in higher education, according to a 2003 report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. The report indicated there were 154 women in college in Maine per 100 men, just below Delaware which had the next lowest rate with 151 women per 100 men. Utah, with 100 men for every 98 women, had the highest rate of college-going males to females.

Schools have become more favorable to girls than boys.

Environmental Heresies

MIT Technology Review says:

Environmental Heresies
By Stewart Brand May 2005

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

Reversals of this sort have occurred before. Wildfire went from universal menace in mid-20th century to honored natural force and forestry tool now, from “Only you can prevent forest fires!” to let-burn policies and prescribed fires for understory management.

I don't see environmentalists responding to scientific facts so readily.

Visual illusions

Check out these visual illusions. Excellent site.

Assault ban failed

The NY Times admits:

Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons' sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several metropolitan police departments.

The uneventful expiration of the assault weapons ban did not surprise gun owners, nor did it surprise some advocates of gun control.

The assault weapon ban was never really intended to have any significant effect on gun possession or crime. The anti-gun folks just wanted to pick out some guns that looked bad, and then make a symbolic political statement by banning them.

Younger generation opposed to same-sex marriage

A new Gallup poll says:

Some of the things which I thought especially interesting were the results which showed that younger people (18-29) support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage by a 56/39 margin (so much for the concept that gay marriage proponents just have to wait until the younger generation grows up), while the demographic with the least support for an amendment is people 50-64 (ie, the cream of the Baby Boomer generation), who only support such an amendment by a 51/45 margin.

The poll shows that opposition to same-sex marriage is increasing.

Cockfighting worse than domestic violence

News from S. Carolina:

(Columbia) April 20, 2005 - The State House took up two pieces of legislation this week aimed at protecting two different groups. Up for debate was cracking down on gamecock fighting and protecting victims of domestic violence.

A bill protecting cocks passed through the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. John Graham Altman (R-Dist. 119-Charleston) was in favor of the gamecock bill, "I was all for that. Cockfighting reminds me of the Roman circus, coliseum."

A bill advocates say would protect victims against batterers was tabled, killing it for the year. Rep. Altman is on the committee that looked at the domestic violence bill, "I think this bill is probably drafted out of an abundance of ignorance."

I think that both should be de-criminalized.

Overweight people live longer

The health experts say that you are overweight if your BMI is over 25, and obese if it is over 30. Now it turns out that overweight people live the longest:

People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today.

The researchers - statisticians and epidemiologists from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - also found that increased risk of death from obesity was seen for the most part in the extremely obese, a group constituting only 8 percent of Americans.

And being very thin, even though the thinness was longstanding and unlikely to stem from disease, caused a slight increase in the risk of death, the researchers said.

My BMI is 27. I think that my weight is ideal. Apparently people with my BMI live the longest. They need to adjust the BMI tables.

This is being reported as saying that overweight people live longer. My point is that athletic people have extra muscle mass, and get falsely classified as being overweight because the BMI tables do not distinguish between muscle and fat. Perhaps the conclusion should have been that athletic people live longer.

Here is the JAMA abstract.

American divorce rate is falling

This NY Times story says that stories about 50% divorce rates are exaggerated:

About 60 percent of all marriages that eventually end in divorce do so within the first 10 years, researchers say. If that continues to hold true, the divorce rate for college graduates who married between 1990 and 1994 would end up at only about 25 percent, compared to well over 50 percent for those without a four-year college degree.

It says that the overall divorce rate never reached 50%, and maybe it never will, in spite of common predictions. The article ends with this lame excuse:

Joshua R. Goldstein, associate professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton's Office of Population Research, said the loss of detailed government data, coming at a time when divorce rates were at their highest, might have distorted not only public perception, but people's behavior.

"Expectations of high divorce are in some ways self-fulfilling," he said. "That's a partial explanation for why rates went up in the 1970's."

As word gets out that rates have tempered or actually begun to fall, Dr. Goldstein added, "It could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in the other direction."

So this guy thinks that 1000s of couples got divorced because they thought that they were following a trend, and if they only knew that they were following the wrong trend, they would have stayed married. No wonder these folks are producing faulty statistics.

Marriage therapy doesn't work

The NY Times reports:

Each year, hundreds of thousands of couples go into counseling in an effort to save their troubled relationships.

But does marital therapy work? Not nearly as well as it should, researchers say. Two years after ending counseling, studies find, 25 percent of couples are worse off than they were when they started, and after four years, up to 38 percent are divorced.

... experts say many therapists lack the skills to work with couples who are in serious trouble.

I guess that the therapists blame all the failures on the other therapists who supposedly lack skills.

I wonder what percentage of couples are actually damaged by the therapy. Some couples see a therapist, get bad advice, act on the bad advice, and end up much worse off.

Snoop Dogg not going to Harvard

Harvard has disinvited a rap star:

Some Harvard students had objected to the appearance, citing lyrics on Snoop Dogg's latest album about slapping women to keep them under control.

In "R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece," the song "Can You Control Yo Hoe" includes the line "If she won't do what you say, why aren't you slapping her?"

Harvard has published Andrea Dworkin's nonsense.

Sex differences

John sends this Stanley Kurtz essay about sex differences.

There’s also a fourth possible view on the relations between sex and success—one that no one has systematically articulated to date. If those who assert biological differences between the sexes disagree about whether we can overcome them, the same might apply to those who assert the power of cultural differences. Even if we do provisionally hold that virtually all differences between men and women are cultural, might it not also be true that those differences are impossible to overcome? If so, it wouldn’t be “gender” but the feminist effort to eliminate it that is truly oppressive. This fourth view suggests that the very same cultural forces that make feminists desire androgyny may actually prevent us from achieving it. The cultural sources of “gender” difference, properly understood, would then inform us not that our gender identities are infinitely malleable but that they’re effectively impossible to change. ...

Chodorow hypothesizes that the differences between the sexes simply derive from the contingent circumstance that women happen to be the primary caretakers of children. The special, “feminine” empathy required for rearing children, she suggests, becomes indelibly associated in our minds with people who just physically happen to be female. ...

There are some interesting ideas here, but most of them don't hold water.

Andrea Dworkin dies

The Reason magazine blog says:

What's with all the posthumous adulation of loony feminist extraordinaire Andrea Dworkin? ...

Whatever her defenders may say, Dworkin was a relentless preacher of hatred toward men ...

Whatever her defenders say, Dworkin was anti-sex. No, she may not have ever written the actual words "All sex is rape" or "All sexual intercourse is rape." But she did extensively argue, in particular in the 1987 book, Intercourse, that (1) all heterosexual sex in our "patriarchal" society is coercive and degrading to women, and (2) sexual penetration may by its very nature doom women to inferiority and submission, and "may be immune to reform." A chapter from the book, filled with such insights as, "Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women," can be found here.

Just another kooky feminist.

Michael Jackson will be acquitted

Here are my tentative conclusions from the Michael Jackson trial.

Jackson is a weirdo, but not a criminal.

I wouldn't send my kids to Neverland.

Jackson is surrounded by leeches and blackmailers.

All of his accusers have severe credibility problems.

I now think that Jackson will be acquitted.

Update: This David R. Usher essay says:

What does the postmodern WKKK have to do with Michael Jackson? Everything! When feminists left the KKK, they simply forgot the word “black”. In its place, they merely substituted the word “men”.

Credit counseling

Andy writes that the new federal bankruptcy law requires "credit counseling", whatever that is. It is now part of the law as 11 USC 106 and 111. Weird.

Fast times and sex toys

Sex studies are in the news. This study used a stopwatch on men. 1.8 minutes for 13% of them. Another study says 46% of American women own sex toys. No relation known.

Dying from low salt

This NY Times article says that athletes can die from a lack of salt:

The research involved 488 runners in the 2002 marathon. The runners gave blood samples before and after the race. While most were fine, 13 percent of them - or 62 - drank so much that they had hyponatremia, or abnormally low blood sodium levels. Three had levels so low that they were in danger of dying.

When I was a kid, athletes were commonly given salt pills during water breaks. The article fails to suggest or even mention this obvious remedy.

We've had many years of propaganda that salt is somehow unhealthy or harmful. Salt is a health issue for a small number of people on high blood pressure medication, but the vast majority of people can eat all the salt they want with no known ill effects.

Feminists against choice

It is funny how a bunch of junk science lawyers and feminists have been keeping silicone breast implants off the market. Their position seems to be that the implants are okay if the woman has a good reason (like reconstruction) but not otherwise. The anti-silicone feminists probably all call themselves "pro-choice", but they don't want women to be able to make their own choices about their breasts.

One of them is a lesbian

Bob sends this excerpt from the Dilbert Newsletter 60.0.

My nephew, a freshman in college, attended a meeting in his dorm in which everyone introduced themselves and shared some personal information to get acquainted. My nephew introduced himself and mentioned that he has two moms. An Induhvidual looked at him and said, in all seriousness, “So… does this mean that one of them is a lesbian?”

It sounds ridiculous, but the nephew does not have "two moms". He has one mom, and that mom is probably not even really a lesbian. She was probably married to his dad who turned into a man-hating feminist.

Stand Your Ground

John sends this news:

Florida's lawmakers have passed a bill to remove criminal penalties for anyone who shoots an attacker even if the shooter didn't first make an effort to escape.

The "Stand Your Ground" bill, which is expected to be signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, removes the "retreat if it is prudent" clause from state law, thus giving citizens the right to use deadly force - even when it may not be needed.

A man shouldn't have to flee his own home when an intruder invades.

Left-wing book banners

It is always amusing to hear left-wing law profs advocating censorship. I never hear right-wing academics wanting to ban books or anything like that. Here is Prof. Eric Muller wanting to ban a children's book that mentions Japan, Christianity, and Buddhism, and wanting to ban ban Michelle Malkin's excellent book on the WWII Japanese internment. It seems to me that people visiting a preserved internment camp might very well want to read a book that documents the reasons for the internment. Third graders might want to learn about Japanese cultural differences as well.

Bogus argument for gun control

For a long time, gun control advocates claimed that there was a consensus among legal experts that the Second Amendment does not describe an individual right to possess guns.

In reality, the vast majority of legal experts agree that the 2A does describe an individual right. It is so hard to find another view that the Joyce Foundation had to bribe law professors and censor those with accurate views. Here is the Bogus explanation:

We felt that, for a variety of reasons, the collective rights model was under represented in the debate, and wanted to give scholars an opportunity to enhance or further illuminate the collective rights position. Sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium. I did not, therefore, invite anyone who I knew subscribed to the individual rights model.

Those are the words of appropriately named Prof. Carl Bogus.

Interrupting sex for phone calls

A user survey reported:

Fourteen percent of the world's cell phone users report that they have stopped in the middle of a sex act to answer a ringing wireless device, Ad Age reported. The highest incidence of cellular interruptus was found in Germany and Spain, where 22 percent of users interrupted sex to answer their cell phones; the lowest was in Italy, where only 7 percent reported doing so.

At least you know where you stand if your lover prefers a cell phone call.

Jane Fonda: shut up!

Jane Fonda still needs someone to tell her to shut up.

The phony Schiavo memo story

The Powerline blog has the story about the Terri Schiavo memo. The Wash Post reported:

Republican officials declared, in a memo that was supposed to be seen only by senators, that they believe the Schiavo case "is a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

We now know that story is mostly a hoax, apparently perpetrated by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin or his staff. Republican officials did not declare anything, or send any memo to any Republican senators. There was a pro-Schiavo memo that was written by a Republican staffer that said:

This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.

This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.

These were routine talking points. The pro-lifers do believe that there should be an honest and open debate about life-and-death issues, and indeed excited about the Schiavo case drawing attention to issues of importance to them.

Polls on killing Terri Schiavo

Zogby says:

Polls leading up to the death of Terri Schiavo made it appear Americans had formed a consensus in favor of ending her life. However, a new Zogby poll with fairer questions shows the nation clearly supporting Terri and her parents and wanting to protect the lives of other disabled patients.

Malkin has more. 80% say that a disabled person should not be denied food and water. Another poll said that 75% thought that the government should stay out, and so they all presumably think that the government judge should never have issued the starvation order.

The Zogby poll still doesn't get to the heart of the matter. There is a reason why this case is controversial, and the polls don't really address it.

Wendy's finger story

San Diego paper says:

LAS VEGAS – The woman who claims she bit into a human finger while eating chili at a Wendy's restaurant has a history of filing lawsuits – including a claim against another fast-food restaurant in Nevada.

Anna Ayala, who hired a San Jose, Calif., attorney to represent her in the Wendy's case, has been involved in at least half a dozen legal battles in the San Francisco Bay area, according to more than a decade of court records.

They include the suit she brought against an ex-boss in 1998, seeking $500,000 for sexual harassment, and the 2000 case she filed against an auto dealership alleging the wheel fell off her car. That suit was dismissed after Ayala fired her lawyer, who said she had threatened him.

I am suspicious about whether this woman really got a finger in her chili. Food companies get a lot of bogus lawsuits from people like this woman.

15-year-old girls are not adults

The feministing blog says:

What lesson are we giving to teenage girls by telling them they have no right to make potentially life-changing decisions without a parent or judge being involved?

The teenagers are under the age of 16. The message is that they are not adults. We don't let children make life-changing decisions.

Only leftist works win prizes

Here are the Pulitzer nominees for editorial cartoons. See a pattern? They are all left-wing. Here are the photo nominees. Same story. No, I don't believe that only leftists are smart enough to draw cartoons or use cameras.

How marital therapy can be hazardous

Conventional wisdom says that those with marital problems are better off seeing some sort of marriage counselor or psychotherapist. The empirical evidence is rather weak, and I wouldn't be surprised if such therapy usually does more harm than good. Here is an essay on How therapy can be hazardous to your marital health.

Now I’m going to talk about the most common ways that therapists undermine marital commitment. And I want to underline again: I do this for a living. I train therapists, and I think that therapy can be enormously helpful in the right hands. There are four ways that therapists undermine marital commitment: incompetent therapists, neutral therapists, pathologizing therapists, and overtly undermining therapists.

And this is coming from a psychotherapist. He's may be doing harm also, and he may not realize it.

African wives don't say no

This is from a NY Times letter:

As a Nigerian psychiatrist and public-health physician who has worked with Nigerian women, I know that African men will not use condoms, not with prostitutes or girlfriends and definitely not with their wives - who, they believe, are their property.

An average African woman cannot say no to her husband: the consequences are a thorough beating or divorce, and most African women cannot afford divorce. Unlike their Western sisters, they would not be given child support. And with no social welfare services to assist them in caring for their children, they would become destitute. At the same time, their culture would blame them for not holding on to their husbands.

There is probably an army of Western do-gooders trying to convince the African women to say no to their husbands and walk out of their marriages, and to change the culture so that women will be held blameless.

Things are a little different in Japan:

Like many Japanese women, Junko waited until her early 30s to get married. When she and her fiance, an employee of a well-known firm, decided to tie the knot, she set her sights on making a home, putting away some money and starting a family.

Fifteen years later, Junko and her husband are childless. It is not that they cannot have children; it is just that they have never had sex.

The sexless marriage is one of several reasons why experts fear Japan is on the verge of a demographic disaster. ...

The 200 women a year who seek help at a clinic in the Tokyo suburbs have not had sex with their husbands in up to 20 years, and some never, according to Kim Myong-gan, who runs the clinic. ...

A survey of 600 women found that 26% had not had sex with their husbands in the past year. ...

"The men love their companies; they live for work," Mr Kim said. "Men don't even think it is a problem if they don't have sex with their wives. They have pornography and the sex industry to take care of their needs, but their wives have nowhere to go. They just suffer in silence."

My mom says, "the American woman is the most fortunate creature to ever walk the face of the earth."

Just a number

A gigabyte of free email ought to be enough for me, Google wants to offer more than Yahoo:

Karen Mahon, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said, "For many e-mail users, anything beyond one gigabyte is just a number."

Marty Nemko

Marty Nemko has some good essays on men's issues and other subjects. I just heard him on the radio, and some women callers were enraged when he told the truth about sex discrimination. A lot of women cling to persecution myths that just are not justified by the statistics.

Evolving rats are ticklish

Here is more evolution news:

Even laboratory rats have been shown to chirp delightedly above the range of human hearing when wrestling with each other or being tickled by a keeper -- the same vocalizations they make before receiving morphine or having sex. ...

``Tickles are the key,'' he said. ``They open up a previously hidden world.''

Panksepp had studied play vocalizations in animals for years before it occurred to him that they might be an ancestral form of laughter.

``Then I went to the lab and tickled some rats. Tickled them gently around the nape of their necks. Wow!''

The tickling made the rats chirp happily -- ``as long as the animal's friendly toward you,'' he said. ``If not, you won't get a single chirp, just like a child that might be suspicious of an adult.''

Rats that were repeatedly tickled became socially bonded to the researchers and would seek out tickles. The researchers also found that rats would rather spend time with animals that chirp a lot than with those that don't.

Yeah, I tried that with my wife. Maybe the rats are evolving to be more like women.