Politics before the morning bus

Uh-oh: Abbott silent on plans for abortions. Catholic Health Australia and the Deputy PM want to put up barriers to reduce access to safe abortions. I'm not reassured by the last line of the news item, assuring us that the government has no plans to change abortion policy; they could make plans, and they can do whatever they want. If you don't want John Howard making your medical decisions for you, drop Mr Abbott a polite line and tell him so:

Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au

House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

(02) 9977 6411

Feel free to copy this posting, unedited, to any relevant forum.

(no subject)

Now here's an interesting thing I stumbled across while looking up stuff in the NSW Hansard, the record of Parliament. The Hon David Clarke praised the recent federal ban on gay marriage, and stated that:

"According to the highly respected American Sociological Review, children raised in homosexual households are more likely to experience gender and sexual disorders."

Now, a review of the literature published in that journal in 2001 found exactly the opposite - that kids of gay parents were no more likely to have psychological problems or to want a sex change. Here's the citation:

Stacey, Judith and Timothy J. Biblarz. (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter? American Sociological Review, 66 (2), April 2001, pp. 159-183.

Stable URL (available from some locations): http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28200104%2966%3A2%3C159%3A%28DTSOO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

I'll just drop Mr Clarke a polite note and find out what study he was referring to, because it's obviously not this one. (Perhaps you'd like to as well.)

The Hon. David John CLARKE, MLC
Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney NSW 2000

9230 2260

David.Clarke@parliament.nsw.gov.au

More about furlongs

timbus is measured in furlongs.

( eg )

Beltane

Jacaranda trees
Signal blazing through the noise
A violet svaha

(no subject)

Couple of snippets re the US election from the Canberra Sunday Times.

An article argues that a Kerry victory would be good for Australia; although Howard and Bush are sekrit lovers close friends and allies, Kerry wouldn't try to dismantle our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (and as a chronically ill Australian full of medicine, I like the sound of that) and would give us a generally better deal under the FTA, and would support our initiatives against biological weapons (Bush refused to allow international monitors to inspect US labs for these weapons of mass destruction).

There was also a brief item about some innovative electioneering by Bush supporters. I found more detail online here.

Genesis 37

Genesis 37

My crummy summary: Yes! We're in Lloyd Webber land at last. Jacob likes Joseph best and gives him the coat of many colours. Joseph is a dum dum and keeps boasting about his dreams where he is the r0xx0r. The brothers plan to do him in, but after Reuben pleads for his life they end up selling him to the hairy Ishmeelites, who in turn sell him to Potiphar the Egyptian.

My notes to me: I love the brothers' mocking remark, "Behold, this dreamer cometh." I wonder if they're just sick of his crowing, or if they're worried his dreams are prophetic. "spicery and balm and myrrh" is also a gorgeous phrase. Reuben's tragic "The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?" after his failed attempt to save Joseph suggests the dreamer is very young indeed.

Natural History

Today's phylum is ROTIFERA, the, er, rotifers. They were discovered by Dutch microscope expert Leeuwenhoek around 200 years ago. (Think of it - they were there the whole time and we had no idea. There's something eerie about that. At least with germs we knew something was going on.) These guys are multicellular, but extremely tiny, the size of single-celled organisms. They have a "wheel" of cilia around their mouths (rota is Latin for wheel) for grabbing food, and a foot with a "toe" used to attach themselves to surfaces. There are about 2000 species, typically found in fresh water.

Subliminal message

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excellent cat photo

unbelievably excellent cat photo