ELSEWHERE

"Gay gene" a myth: "A study to be published in the March 2005 issue of the journal Human Genetics, and available online now, actually undermines the commonly held view that homosexual orientation is determined by genetic factors. The study's lead author Brian Mustanski from University of Illinois at Chicago said in a UIC news release that "There is no one 'gay' gene. Sexual orientation is a complex trait, so it's not surprising that we found several DNA regions involved in its expression." However, a thorough examination of the actual report reveals no statistically significant findings for any of these DNA regions".

Sense from the Saudis! "Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi thinks extremist teachings, not unemployment, are the root causes of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. Gosaibi blamed the spread of terrorism on the "indoctrination that teaches young people they can kill justifiably" and the training some extremists received in terror camps in Afghanistan. "I don't believe that terrorist movement has anything to do with unemployment," the minister told reporters in Riyadh. Unemployment has long been regarded as a major source of frustration in a region possessing one of the world's youngest populations. Many also argue that economic hardships also drive young people from the region toward militancy. As you know Osama Bin Laden is a very rich man and all of his cronies are quite rich," Gosaibi said. "(Venezuelan-born terrorist) Carlos (the Jackal) wasn't exactly a beggar and I am not aware that somebody has been driven to terrorism simply because he could not find a job."

Another Leftist antisemite: "Ken Livingstone was accused last night of having "lost the plot" after an angry confrontation with a Jewish journalist who, he said, was behaving "just like a concentration camp guard". The Mayor clashed with Oliver Finegold, a reporter from the London Evening Standard, on Wednesday night at a party marking the 20th anniversary of Chris Smith becoming the first openly gay MP. His "concentration camp" remark came after being told that the reporter was Jewish, it was claimed..... The Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "We are appalled by this latest outburst by a man whose insensitivity seems to know no bounds."

Given me Irish blood, I've got to note this report: "It was not so long ago, even less than a generation, that Ireland was a threadbare nation, barely relevant in European affairs. Finding a job meant hopping an aircraft out of the country. People counted their pennies, not their commuter miles, and poverty, for many, was a stubborn component of Irish life. But Ireland's jump into the European Union and aggressively pro-business economic policies changed all that. In little more than a decade the so-called Celtic Tiger was transformed from one of the poorest countries in Western Europe to one of the richest in the world. Its gross domestic product per person, not quite 70 per cent of the EU average in 1987, sprung to 136 per cent of the EU average by 2003, while the jobless rate sank to 4 per cent from 17 per cent. In November The Economist cemented Ireland's powerhouse reputation by declaring it the country with the best quality of life in the world."

I often point out (e.g. here) that degree of happiness is a fairly lasting disposition rather than something that is affected by how much money you have and this rather confirms it: "Most people who live with serious disability or illness, such as kidney failure, appear to adapt well and maintain a healthy outlook on life, new research reports. This trend may be surprising to some -- the report also found that people without serious illnesses tended to underestimate the level of happiness in these patients. "We think it is encouraging that for at least some illnesses, life seems to (eventually) go on and that people come to experience good and even normal mood levels," study author Dr. Jason Riis of Princeton University in New Jersey told Reuters Health. "We cannot adapt to anything. But we are generally more resilient than we think," he said. In the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Riis and his colleagues note that this is not the first study to show that people can adjust to good and bad life events. For instance, a nearly 30-year old study found that paraplegics were not that much less happy than lottery winners."

Wicked Thoughts has been putting up a lot of odd and amusing news items lately -- many proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. The one on Microsoft and the EU really is amazing.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes that Marx talks of "dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff". My latest posting on "A scripture blog" asks what sort of Hell "gehenna" is.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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