"Of course, part of the explanation for this decline in extramarital
sex is that easier divorce means that people are no longer have to tomcat
around because they are stuck in unsatisfactory marriages. It's worth
noting that more than two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women.
The divorce rate tripled in the United States between 1960 and 1980,
peaking at 5.3 per 1,000 people in 1981, falling to 4.2 per 1,000 in
2000, and falling again down to 3.6 per 1,000 in 2005, the lowest rate
since 1970. Interestingly, a "divorce divide" between the
college educated and other Americans appears to be opening up. University
of Maryland researcher Steven Martin reports, "From the 1970s to
the 1990s, rates of marital dissolution fell by almost half among 4-year
college graduates, but remained relatively high and steady among women
with less than a 4-year college degree." He further suggests that
college graduates might be the vanguard of a cultural shift away from
divorce. Contraceptive use is highest among college educated women.”
16. Now as We noted earlier (no. 3), some people today raise the
objection against this particular doctrine of the Church concerning
the moral laws governing marriage, that human intelligence has both
the right and responsibility to control those forces of irrational
nature which come within its ambit and to direct them toward ends
beneficial to man. Others ask on the same point whether it is not
reasonable in so many cases to use artificial birth control if by
so doing the harmony and peace of a family are better served and more
suitable conditions are provided for the education of children already
born. To this question We must give a clear reply. The Church is the
first to praise and commend the application of human intelligence
to an activity in which a rational creature such as man is so closely
associated with his Creator. But she affirms that this must be done
within the limits of the order of reality established by God.
“If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births,
arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or
wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married
people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the
reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during
those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which
does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just
explained.
“Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she
considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile
period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly
prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice
may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases
are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly
use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct
the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied
that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are
both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish
to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it
is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready
to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as
for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable.
And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy
to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one
another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic
love.”
“[...] But this is emblematic of the sort of signage arms race
that has become necessary [on roads] in the U.S. When you’ve trained
people to drive according to the signs, you need to keep adding more
signs to tell them exactly when and in what fashion they need to adjust
their behavior. Otherwise, drivers may see no reason why they should
slow down on a curve in the rain.”
—
“Economists and ecologists sometimes speak of the "tragedy
of the commons" - the way rational individual actions can collectively
reduce the common good when resources are limited. How this applies
to traffic safety may not be obvious. It’s easy to understand
that although it pays the selfish herdsman to add one more sheep to
common grazing land, the result may be overgrazing, and less for everyone.
But what is the limited resource, the commons, in the case of driving?
It’s attention. Attending to a sign competes with attending to
the road. The more you look for signs, for police, and at your speedometer,
the less attentive you will be to traffic conditions. The limits on
attention are much more severe than most people imagine. And it takes
only a momentary lapse, at the wrong time, to cause a serious accident.”
In Nazi Germany, from 1938
These medals were handed out every year on the birthday of Hitler’s
mother (12 August). Note that one stem is elongated so the Nazi cross resembles a
quasi-Christian cross.
Bronze cross of honour of the German
mother (mother’s cross)
for 4 to 5 children
Silver cross of honour of the German
mother (mother’s cross)
for 6 to 7 children
Gold cross of honour of the German
mother (mother’s cross)
for 8 or more children
It is probable that an
even more impressive version, this gold cross with 17 diamonds, was issued
to encourage even greater heroic fecundity on behalf of the National Socialist
Reich. The object to the left is currently for
sale at $5,000.
As with most antiquarian glitter, there is much creative
reproduction (some would call it forgery) available to collectors.
Left: Gold cross of honour of the German mother (mother’s
cross), with 17 diamonds, probably for 10 children and upwards
There was also a special brooch issued by Heinrich Himler for the SS:
“Heinrich Himmler SS Lebensborn Mutter brooch - Mother's brooch
"Every Mother of Good Blood is a Sacred Asset of Our Existence".”
In Soviet Russia (USSR), from 1944
Soviet Russia started out in 1918 with Marxist
idealism, where the family was a bourgeois form of prostitution. As
the Socialist idealism became increasingly intrusive, so the early enthusiasm
turned to ever more extreme personal interference.
By 1944, following National Socialist Germany, a range of
medals were struck for motherhood, and divorcees were being named and shamed.Meanwhile, during the great Patriotic War (known in the West as World
War Two), up to 10% of Russian women served in the military, often alongside
fighting men. But after the war, those women used to hide their involvement
and medals, or risk being called whores and camp followers, while the men were
treated as heroes.
Adopted children and children dying in the service of the State counted; otherwise,
the prize was awarded when the last child reached the age of one, all the other
children still being alive. There’s gotta be rules.
Soviet mother second class, for 5 children
approx. 8 million issued
Soviet mother first class, for 6 children
approx. 4 million issued
Order of Maternal Glory 3rd class, for 7
children
Order of Maternal Glory 2nd class, for 8
children
Order of Maternal Glory 1st class, for 9
children
Soviet Motherhood medals are also illustrated on some Russian stamps.
Mother heroine, for 10 children
“As victory drew near and the chaos and upheavals of the early
wartime period gave way to order and renewed control, gender distinctions
became exaggerated in ways they had not been earlier. Thus in 1943,
co-education, in practice since 1918, was abolished in secondary schools
in order to give proper attention to ‘the different requirements
of their [boys and girls] vocational training, practical activities,
preparation for leadership and military service’. A new family
code of 1944 reinforced marital ties by making divorce more expensive
and complicated to obtain. The code was intrusively pronatalist: single
people were taxed, as were married people who had less than three children.
The cult of motherhood intensified. ‘Motherhood medals’
were awarded to women with five or more children; those with ten or
more received the honour of ‘Heroine mother’.” [Quoted from
Russia at a Crossroads by Nurit Schleifman]
Other countries that have produced motherhood medals are Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania and France. Started in 1920, since 2013 the French medal is called the Medal of the Family [web site in French].
There even appears to be a market for Hitler action-man. Doubtless, it is just a matter of time before Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Mugabe and other great heroes of socialism find their own strange groupies.
I particularly like the inter-changeable heads.
“I have a whole collection of monster action figures to which
I plan to add Hitler. I might even create a tableau of Hitler battling
Frankenstein
“Each poseable figure is about one foot tall and comes complete
with 32 highly detailed accessory pieces including leather coat, over
coat, 2-heads, 2-hats, military uniform, party uniform, sun glasses,
walking stick, medals, even hobnails on his boots and shoes and much
more.
“Phillips refused to work on any further Motorola-funded projects,
and in 1998, in the peer-reviewed journal Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics,
he published his dna study, which would be one of his last. That same
year, the Department of Energy stopped funding the group’s work
on electromagnetic radiation effects. Phillips left Loma Linda and moved
to Colorado Springs. Today he’s the director of the Science/ Health
Science Learning Center at the University of Colorado.
“Lai, the soft-spoken University of Washington scientist who
published the study that inspired Phillips’ research, has also
felt outside pressure. In a 1994 Motorola memo - obtained and published
by the New York-based Microwave News - a corporate communications employee
discussed how the company could discredit Lai’s findings. The
memo concludes, "I think that we have sufficiently war-gamed the
Lai-Singh issue, assuming the Scientific Advisory Group and ctia have
done their homework."
“Shortly thereafter, an anonymous call was made to the National
Institutes of Health, the agency funding Lai’s work. The person
charged that Lai was performing experiments outside the scope of his
grant. The nih looked into the allegation but told Lai to continue his
research. Then, he says, the scientific advisory group created by ctia
to manage $25 million (US) in industry-donated research money sent a
letter to the president of the University of Washington demanding that
Lai and Singh both be fired. Lai wasn’t, but soon after, all non-industry
funding for related research dried up in the US. Like Phillips, he left
the field.”
—
“Recent epidemiological (population-based) studies comparing the
cellphone habits of people with brain tumours to healthy individuals
suggest that the frequency - and length - of use may indeed play a role
in tumour development. "There’s no indication, for people
who use their phones for less than ten years, of an association between
mobile phone use and these particular cancers," says Lawrie Challis,
former chairman of the UK’s Mobile Telecommunications and Health
Research Programme. But "knowing what happens in the short term
tells you nothing about what happens in the long term." ”
problems
and crudity with groupist responses - why socialists are locked in a politically
correct box
As a groupist
cult, UK socialist
Labour is class-based. It is, therefore, natural that it is also ‘racist’
- in an accurate sense.
The socialist pre-occupation with ‘race’ is typical
of religious zealots. Socialists also see the world in terms of groups.
They see others concentrating on a different
hate group and, thereby, being distracted from the group socialists want
to hate, and want others to hate.
As with any blinkered person, there is only one prime
or politically correct group to hate.
This can even be seen with less groupist cults. For instance,
with Catholics, the prime hate group is ‘heretics’.
Even hating two groups is an opening of awareness. Islam
hates both Jews and apostates, and many others.
Heretics/apostates are often singled out for special
loathing, as although they once accepted ‘the truth’. Now knowing
why and how it is ‘the truth’, apostates decide to reject that
‘truth’. That is an unforgiveable insult.
In answer to a smoker who claimed that was no proof
that smoking causes lung cancer (and many other diseases), saying:
“Mere statistics is not hard evidence. Correlation does not equal
causation. Right now the only "evidence" I have seen is correlation,
not causation.”
One of the things rammed into the heads of statistics
students is that correlation does not imply causation, a very necessary
caution to beginners.
Hume (1711-1776) and cause
“Although people gain much information from their impressions, most
matters of fact depend upon reasoning about causes and effects, even
though people do not directly experience causal relations. What, then,
are causal relations? According to Hume they have three components:
contiguity of time and place, temporal priority of the cause, and
constant conjunction.
“In order for x to be the cause of y, x and y must exist adjacent
to each other in space and time, x must precede y, and x and y must
invariably exist together. People do not experience and do not know
of any power, energy, or secret force that causes ‘possess’.
Judgements about causes and their effects are based upon experience.
“To cite examples from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
(1748). There is nothing in the experience of seeing a fire close
by which logically requires that one will feel heat. There is nothing
in the experience of seeing one rolling billiard ball contact another
that logically requires the second one to begin moving, why does one
expect heat to be felt and the second ball to roll?
“The explanation is custom (habit). In previous experiences,
the feeling of heat has regularly accompanied the sight of fire, and
the motion of one billiard ball has accompanied the motion of another.
Thus the mind becomes accustomed to certain expectations. "All
inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not
of reasoning." Thus it is that custom (experience and memory),
not reason, is the great guide of life. In short, the idea of cause
and effect is neither a relation of ideas nor a matter of fact. Although
it is not a perception and not rationally justified, it is crucial
to human survival and a central aspect of human cognition. [Adapted
from Encyclopedia Britannica CD 97, (Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.,1997)]
Example: Every woman
who has a baby eventually dies - a 100% correlation.
Therefore, having babies kills you.
Example: Every time
you throw a ball into the air, it appears to fall back to earth.
If this happens 10,000 or 10,000,000 times, you
have a statistical probability of 1.
Now, throw the ball in the air...
No, before you do that, tell me that this correlation between throwing
up your (remaining) ball is only a statistical correlation. Thus there
is no proof that it will again fall to earth next time.
When will I hear the argument, “The only evidence I have seen for
gravity is correlation, not causation”?
I do not see many smokers standing under falling pianos to
test the veracity of the gravity correlation, but they do regularly stick dummies in their
mouths and set fire to them.
Correlation may not be causation, whatever
causation may be; but correlation can certainly be evidence.
“At eight years old, Hong maintains a very curious nature. She
loves to investigate everything and once managed to use her trunk to
open the door of a truck. This kind of curiosity made Hong a natural
candidate for artistic instruction.
“Two years ago, Hong began painting with her mahout, Noi Rakchang,
and has steadily developed her skills. After learning how to paint flowers,
she moved on to more advanced paintings. She now has two specialties.
One is an elephant holding flowers with her trunk, and the other is
the Thai flag. An elephant with so much control and dexterity is capable
of amazing work. Just for clarification, with these realistic figural
works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper
but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting
a still life on her own.” [Quoted from elephantart.com]
“The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project (AEACP) is
a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding people in need and to
saving the diminishing number of Asian elephants left on our planet
through its work with domesticated elephants. The AEACP raises funds
through the sale of artwork created by elephants in order to generate
money and create awareness for the people and elephants of Asia.”
—
“In its creation, Komar & Melamid brought the idea of teaching
elephants how to paint from US zoos to the impoverished countryside
of Southeast Asia, where the much needed ban on logging in the late
80’s left the remaining few thousand elephants and their caretakers
out of work. The extensive logging of the countryside and the explosion
of the human population in the area led to the destruction of much of
the elephants’ natural habitat, leaving them with no wild to return
to. Thousands of elephants and their lifelong caretakers were left without
financial support and have since been forced to beg for food on crowded
city streets. The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project is designed
to help these surviving elephants and the people that care for them.
The project is grounded on the basis of art functioning as charity,
or art for the betterment of people as a whole.”
“Spain is to become the first country to extend legal rights
to apes, wrongfooting animal rights activists who have long campaigned
against bullfighting in the country.
“In what is thought to be the first time a national legislature
has granted such rights to animals, the Spanish parliament’s environmental
committee voted to approve resolutions committing the country to the
Great Apes Project, designed by scientists and philosophers who say
that humans’ closest biological relatives also deserve rights.
“The resolution, adopted with crossparty support, calls on the
Government to promote the Great Apes Project internationally and ensure
the protection of apes from "abuse, torture and death". "This
is a historic moment in the struggle for animal rights," Pedro
Pozas, the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project, told The Times.
"It will doubtless be remembered as a key moment in the defence
of our evolutionary comrades." ”
“Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's honorary Knighthood is to
be withdrawn by the Queen, the BBC has learned.
“Mr Mugabe, condemned over violence ahead of a presidential run-off
election, [had, in 1994, been] made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath [...].
“Foreign Secretary David Miliband recommended to the Queen that
he be stripped of the honour - and the Queen has approved that request.”
Robert Mugabe is insecure and contemptible,
with ideas above his station. You may think the action [of removing the
title] trivial, but it is just the sort of thing to get up Mugabe’s
silly nose. The same goes for banning the Zimbabwe national team from
playing international cricket.
Mugabe is consumed with envy and cultural cringe.
The world will be improved another jot when yet another
disgusting socialist
‘retires’.
Obviously, socialist ‘new’ Labour are just
playing to the gallery as usual, trying to distract attention from their
failures, as highlighted in the reports on flooding and data security
out today.
But taking away the knighthood is still a useful move.
religious communities are driven by sexual advantages
“Hardly any of the students in our study were regular churchgoers,"
he says, "but those who saw themselves as having many kids in stable
marriages were the ones who were anticipating regular church attendance
in the future.” [Quoted from newscientist.com]
“We argue that a central function of religious attendance in
the contemporary United States is to support a high-fertility, monogamous
mating strategy.” [Quoted from sciencedirect.com]
This last is confirmation of a rather obvious observation
that ‘religions’ are so mesmerised by sexual concerns,
to the point of gross intrusion. A similar fascination is seen in media.
In France, beside road accident black spots, which
sometimes extend for kilometres along narrow, winding country roads, stand
black sihilouettes of those killed in car accidents.
Now, in several countries across the world, memorials
are being placed for bike crash victims.
A commemoration for the fallen and a sober reminder for
the living.
Ghost bike in Brighton and Hove, to the memory of
James Danson-Hatcher
“Ghost Bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who
are killed or hit on the street. A bicycle is painted all white and
locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small
plaque.”
“He pointed out that education law does not demand that a teacher
save his pupils during an earthquake.”
—
“One commentator in a state newspaper, the Shanghai Daily, described
Mr Fan as a "courageous coward" for admitting what happened
- but added that his courage was not sufficient to exonerate his cowardice.”
