Experts say Russia is a world leader in the percentage of pregnancies that end in abortion, and the death rate is growing.

Russia's population is steadily declining, leaving fewer people to staff the workforce and to support the older population. Steven Mosher, head of the Population Research Institute, further explains Russia's problems. "Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world. About two-thirds of Russian pregnancies end in abortion," he says. "That's compared to about 20 percent of the babies conceived in the United States."
 
The rise in abortion cases, according to LifeNews.com, means 200,000 to 250,000 new cases of female infertility each year, but Mosher says that is not a shock. "Every time you do an abortion, you scar the inside of the uterus and make less and less surface available for a tiny baby conceived in the fallopian tube to implant," he adds.
 
Currently, abortions for Russians are free at state-run health clinics. Experts believe creating high costs for abortions would shrink the death toll and enlarge population numbers.

Mosher blames a lack of moral conscience for the population decline. "The Russian revolution back in the teens and '20s of the last century completely destroyed traditional Christian morality," he contends. "The early communists, the Bolsheviks they were called, encouraged promiscuity and they encouraged abortion."
 
Demographer Barry McLerran says Russia has one of the world's lowest birth rates at "1.17 children per woman." He adds that a country needs a birth rate of 2.1 merely to replace the current population.
 
The population problem can be fixed, but Mosher believes it will not happen until Russia has a strong moral foundation.

The two-eyed look remains too seductive for Sheikh Habadan

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.

The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.

Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

Give nukes a chance? Environmental activists have given Moscow new leverage over Europe.

It is said that Vladimir Lenin once called Soviet sympathizers in Western countries “useful idiots” for unwittingly advancing the cause of revolutionary Russia. Were the Bolshevik leader alive today, he might apply the same label to German environmentalists, whose influence over their country’s energy policy has been an inadvertent, but essential factor in Moscow’s post-Cold War rise.

Two decades of stringent environmental regulations have made Germany, Europe’s largest economy, increasingly dependent on natural gas from Russia, the world’s largest exporter. Of course, economic leverage translates seamlessly into political power, and Russia’s sway over German foreign policy has been conspicuous as the recent imbroglio in Georgia has continued to play out.

In fact, Germany has the means to power its economy without Russian natural gas, so energy dependence is unnecessary. For starters, it is home to the largest reserves of coal in Europe. But thanks to the European Union’s marquee climate-change mitigation policy—the continent-wide Emission Trading Scheme—the economics of power production have shifted decidedly against coal because its combustion releases the most greenhouse gases of any conventional fuel source.

Given that coal is currently taboo, Germany could meet its energy needs by expanding the use of nuclear energy, which emits no carbon dioxide when used to generate electricity. Yet the environmental movement in Germany opposes nuclear energy because its waste is difficult and dangerous to store. In 2000, environmentalists won passage of the Nuclear Exit Law, which commits German utilities to phasing out nuclear power by 2020.

Rather than coal or nuclear, the environmental movement prefers sustainable sources of power such as wind and solar, and it has convinced the German government to grant generous subsidies to the renewable energy industry. But despite these investments, renewables are still too costly to displace conventional energy sources, which is why wind and solar power account for less than 2 percent of Germany’s primary energy production, according to government figures.

That leaves natural gas, which is cleaner than coal and less expensive than alternative energy. Germany is fortunate to have large deposits of gas—more than 9 trillion cubic feet are believed to lie beneath the northwestern state of Niedersachsen. Environmental regulations, however, have limited exploration and development in the region.

To meet its demand for energy, Germany turned to Gazprom, a state-owned company that has a legal monopoly on natural gas exports from Russia. Natural gas now generates a quarter of Germany’s primary energy, up more than 70 percent since 1990. Most of the increase came from Gazprom.

Currently, almost 40 percent of Germany’s domestic gas consumption comes from Russia. That share is likely to increase with the construction of the Northern Pipeline, a project to be completed in 2010 that would link Russian gas directly to Central European markets.

It’s little wonder, then, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first major world leader to pay a visit to new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Or that at last spring’s NATO summit in Romania, German diplomats orchestrated the opposition to U.S. President George W. Bush’s plan for expanding the trans-Atlantic military alliance to include Georgia and Ukraine. Before the summit, Russian officials had warned that NATO expansion would cause a “deep crisis,” and provoke a “response” from Russia.

Then, last week in St. Petersburg, Merkel became the first Western leader to restore close bilateral ties with Russia after the August conflict in Georgia. Not coincidentally, Merkel’s trip to Russia came at the same time that a major gas deal was signed between Gazprom and E.On, the German gas giant.

Merkel has been outspoken as the Kremlin has demonstrated a seeming willingness to use Russia’s energy resources as a cudgel in interstate disputes. As winter approached a year ago, Gazprom threatened to cut gas supplies to Ukraine after the pro-Russia candidate lost a major election. The timing of the warning was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled threat. So was the decision by Transneft, a state-owned pipeline company that has a monopoly on oil exports from Russia, to precipitously cut supplies to the Czech Republic last July after that country signed a deal with the United States to host radar technology as part of a global missile shield—a policy strenuously opposed by Moscow.

But actions speak louder than words, and Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, are no doubt paying more attention to what Germany’s leader does than what she says.

Domestic opposition to the Northern Pipeline has grown recently, and a debate has started on the future of coal in Germany. For the foreseeable future, however, Germany’s foreign policy will be beholden to its energy dependence on Russia. And for that, we have the environmental movement to thank.

Humans are the best they can possibly be and this is as good as it gets.

Life now is as good as it gets say researchers

That is the intriguing message from academics studying the evolution of the universe.

Professor Steve Jones from the University of London said we have already reached utopia.

Through natural selection, mutation and random change, he believed we have got to where we are going.

"In ancient times, half our children would have died by the age of 20. Now, in the Western world, 98% of them are surviving to the age of 21.

"Our life expectancy is now so good that eliminating all accidents and infectious diseases would only raise it by a further two years."

In spite of chemicals and radioactive pollution, the rate of gene mutation is also slowing.

Older fathers generally means there will be more mutation, but the age of male reproduction has gone down. 

Most men these days do not conceive any children after the age of 35.

It is lucky we worked out how to farm. Without that ability, Prof Jones estimates the world population would be around half a million - about the size of Glasgow's population.

"Humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom, and we have agriculture to thank for that," he said.

"Small populations which are isolated can change - evolve - at random as genes are accidentally lost. 

"Worldwide, all populations are becoming connected and the opportunity for random change is dwindling.

"History is made in bed, but nowadays the beds are getting closer together. Almost everywhere, inbreeding is becoming less common.

"In Britain, one marriage in 50 or so is between members of a different ethnic group, and the country is one of the most sexually open in the world. 

"We are mixing into a global mass, and the future is brown."

He added: "So, if you are worried about what utopia is going to be like, don't - at least in the developed world, and at least for the time being, you are living in it now."

The president of Vision Forum says Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is sending the wrong message when it comes to the priority of mothers in the home.

Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, says while the choice of Palin for the Republican vice-presidential nominee was a smart political move, it violates biblical teachings. It is Phillips' opinion that evangelicals apparently are setting aside long-held values and beliefs about the priority of motherhood and the importance of home life.

"It's pretty clear what it says in Titus 2 that women are to care for their children, love their husband, and be keepers at home; that the Word of God be not blasphemed," Phillips explains. "And it's also clear in 1 Corinthians 11, when it says that the man is not made for the woman but the woman is made for the man, meaning that the wife is to be the helpmeet to the husband, who really sets the family vision and drives the family vision."
 
Palin, according to Phillips, is not as conservative as many may believe. "Her actual record is a very anti-family record. Sarah Palin is on record as being pro-evolution, pro-contraceptive discussion at taxpayer expense at government schools," he adds. "She has advocated the single-most liberal policy regarding Title IX, which requires basically mandatory quotas now to be applied to the private sector. She's one of the most pro-homosexual governors in America in terms of her actual policies."
 
Phillips believes a Christian's first duty is to be motivated by God's Word, and not political expediency.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The words "bride" and "groom" will reappear on all marriage license applications issued in California starting next month, state health officials said.

In a notice posted on its Web site, the California Department of Public Health says it is making the change because many couples still wanted the option of identifying themselves in traditional terms.

When same-sex marriage became legal in the state on June 16, the health department issued new gender-neutral marriage forms with the words "Party A" and "Party B" where "bride" and "groom" used to be.

The latest paperwork, which county clerks will be required to use starting Nov. 17, will have blank spaces for applicants' names and personal information next to the words "First Person Data" and "Second Person Data" and optional boxes for checking "bride" or "groom."

Because "bride" and "groom" appear in both sections, couples could check the same title twice to reflect a union between two men or two women. The health department also told county clerks that the designation of Groom or Bride is not required.

If the Republicans are smart, they should finally start telling the public what the alternative media has long ago announced. Here are two recent pronouncements from Gov. Palin that are right on target and long overdue. They indicate she is willing to tell the truth, however unconventional it might be among the media and Washington elite: Gov. Palin said Sen. Obama seems to see America as so imperfect he has been "palling around with terrorists." This refers to his long and close association with William Ayres, founder of a terrorist group, the Weather Underground, and proud bomber of the Pentagon, the Capitol and other government buildings.

She also said Sen. Obama is disqualified to be president of the United States:

"Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may - in my world - disqualifies him from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly - just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. So I wanted to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize about being a little annoyed but that is also an indication of being outside that Washington elite and being outside the media elite also and just wanting to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."
Isn't it about time we reject those like Sen. Obama, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who tell the most vicious lies about our military who are putting their lives on the line every day and deserve better.

Needless to say, the Obama campaign is in its full denial mode claiming they are being "swift-boated" and this is all a smear. The Obama campaign cites a New York Times story (Oct. 4), which should be disregarded as the Times is nothing more than part of the campaign of Sen. Obama. As I've often said, I wouldn't even wrap dead, rotting fish in the Times, out of respect for the dearly departed fish. And I'd say the same about The Washington Post, another leader in mainstream media bias. And don't forget The Philadelphia Inquirer, another cheerleader for Sen. Obama, which pollutes the local media market.

The fundamental dishonesty of the Times is reflected by its failure to even mention or quote two of the people who have lead the research on the Sen. Obama terrorist-connections: Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso.

The Obama campaign says Mr. Ayres was bombing the Pentagon and the Capitol when Sen. Obama was only 8 years old. That's a nonsensical response, as Sen. Obama's part in the bombing is not the issue. It is his recent, lengthy and close relationship with Mr. Ayres, when he was not 8 years old.

Like the mainstream media, Sen. Obama thinks he is the Messiah. Maybe that's from reading the likes of The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the other charter members of the dishonest, biased and fraudulent mainstream media. I'd agree he's the Messiah if he could actually cut almost everyone's taxes, give them all health insurance, college tuition and propose another trillion dollars in new spending in addition to the $700 billion rescue of financial institutions just passed. I'd also say it's a miracle if a terrorist-loving, America-hating candidate who associates with a bigot, racist and anti-American pastor for 20 years can win the nomination of the Democratic Party.

Some may think it is a smear, but that's because they have trouble believing a major party presidential candidate would hang around with terrorists and come out with slanderous insults aimed at the American military. Unfortunately, the seemingly incredible is all too true.

At the presidential debate, Sen. McCain ought to ask a series of questions: Why do you hang around with terrorists, bigots and racists? Why do you hate America and always put this great country down?

As this column has often pointed out, these anti-American antics of Sen. Obama have to be taken seriously, as they are part of a much larger pattern that goes beyond false accusations against the American military and association with terrorists. There is his 20-year close association with Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, at Trinity Church, the longest, most defining relationship of his life, according to a friendly biographer, Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of Barrack Obama. There is also his close association with a Rev.-Wright-like Father Michael Pfeger, a well-known racist and bigot. There is his refusal to wear an American flag pin and saying it is a symbol of false patriotism, there is his refusal to place his hand over his heart during the national anthem. There is his wife's reference to America as a "mean country" and her statement that for the first time she is proud of America. There is his statement of moral equivalence between our lawful liberation of Iraq and Russia's illegal aggression in Georgia. And there is his rapture over what Europe and the rest of the world thinks of us rather than whether we are doing the right thing. Like Sen. Kerry, he would probably impose a "world test" before taking any action and would be sure not to offend the Europeans or the U.N.

Even his friendly biographer, Mr. Mansfield, writes, "He can clearly be at home with anti-American sentiment." This aroma of anti-Americanism now seems to come from Sen. Obama, the left, the Democratic Party, and much of Europe. But do we really want an anti-American president. I'd vote for him as president of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, or Cuba, but not the United States.

While Gov. Palin is starting to tell the truth about Sen. Obama and the kind of government he would bring about, I'll give her some more talking points.

Consider what would happen with Sen. Obama in the White House, Sen. "Wave the White Flag" Reid in command of a veto-proof majority in the Senate, and Rep. Nancy "San Francisco Liberal Anti-American, Anti-family, and Open Border Values" Pelosi controlling a big Democratic majority in the House. All the radical, extremist, liberal ideology of Sen. Obama and his supporters would become law and the courts would be turned over to liberals who would legislate from the bench. Think about what Sen. Reid and Ms. Pelosi would bring to the table in addition to their far-left radical liberal ideology.

In case you missed it, Sen. Reid made one of the most stupid and damaging statements ever uttered by a political figure when he repeated a wild rumor someone else had related to him that "a major insurance company" was on the verge of bankruptcy, sending already tanking stocks down further and further destroying confidence in the system. This was the equivalent of falsely crying "fire" in a crowded theatre, a bit of stupidity beyond comprehension in even a fool, but most certainly in a top leader of the Democratic Party. Ms. Pelosi, who promised the cleanest and most open administration in history, was just hit by serious conflict of interest problems, as are so many of her associates in the Democratic Congress. Like Sen. Obama, Ms. Pelosi's actions are the opposite of her rhetoric.

Here are Sen. Reid's exact comments during the debate on the $700 billion package, called a bailout, a rescue, or a stabilization measure depending on your viewpoint: "We don't have a lot of leeway on time. One of the individuals in the caucus talked about a major insurance company. A major insurance company - one with a name that everyone knows that's on the verge of going bankrupt. That's what this is all about."

He wasn't even speaking from first-hand knowledge but apparently just repeated what another Democrat had said about a rumor that was floating around. This kind of statement was bound to hit major insurance companies hard and it did. Sen. Reid's circulation of this rumor was like throwing gasoline on a fire and insurance stocks tanked as a result.

Dean Barnett, of the Weekly Standard, came up with the cost of Sen. Reid's wild rumor contribution to solving the financial crisis. MetLife went down 15 percent for a $5 billion loss; Prudential went down 11 percent for a $3 billion loss; AFI was down 7 percent for a $1.5 billion loss; and The Travelers Companies went down 6 percent for a $1.5 billion loss. The Standard & Poor's Insurance Index declined more than 10 percent - more than $25 billion in wreckage thanks to Sen. Reid's loose and irrational lips. What's more the insurance stocks' tanking helped lead the whole market down. Maybe we need a new majority leader as much as we need a bailout. That insurance company may not be bankrupt, but Senate leadership certainly is.

Can we afford Sen. Reid, who can destroy tens of billions of dollars with a single sentence?

There is now good reason to believe this rumor is without basis. CNNMoney reports Steven James, an analyst who covers insurance companies for Raymond James & Associates, said these concerns about insurers were overblown. He said insurers have not invested in the types of "truly toxic assets" that have led to losses by investment and commercial banks. He said that AIG was very "atypical" of the insurance industry.

One other point to further demonstrate that Sen. Reid is not only reckless and negligent but also uninformed. He said that a major insurer was about to go bankrupt. If he talked to anyone who knows anything about the insurance industry, he would know that insurance companies are not subject to the federal bankruptcy law. In the event of insolvency, they are handled under a receivership or liquidation supervised by state insurance regulators. I happened to be a co-author of the Wisconsin insurance laws dealing with "Delinquency Proceedings in Insurance."

One of the fist points made in an introduction to the law is as follows: "Insurers are explicitly excluded from the Federal Bankruptcy Act." Needless to say, Sen. Reid talked to no one and didn't bother to fact check. He admits he did not and thus admits his own stupidity and gross negligence. He was so anxious to float the wild rumor he didn't have time to check anything including his mouth, which caused billions in damage to the economy.

And what did Sen. Reid do to set the record straight after it became apparent that he didn't know what he was talking about? He, through a spokesman, had to admit he didn't know of any insurer about to go bankrupt. His spokesman also said, "Sen. Reid is not personally aware of any particular company being on the verge of bankruptcy. He has no special knowledge about [a bankruptcy] nor has he talked to any insurance company officials. Rather his comments were meant to refer to the conditions in the financial sector generally. He regrets any confusion his comments may have caused."

Translated, that means he didn't know what he was talking about, as usual, and he doesn't know how to use the English language to make the point he is trying to make. How does saying a major insurance company is about to go bankrupt translate into the financial services industry is in bad shape?

Mr. Barnett is less kind to Sen. Reid than I am. He called Sen. Reid's comment not merely reckless but idiotic. He writes, "This all reminds me of Ronald Reagan's joke about life's cruelest irony being the phrase, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' It also reminds me of the considerably less famous phrase, 'What a big mouth that senator has!' "

Of course, by now we should know not to believe much of what Sen. Reid says. He earned the nickname "Wave the White Flat" Reid, when he declared defeat even before the surge had started. But then the Democratic Party has become the party weak on national defense and in favor of appeasement, retreat, defeat and surrender.

In my next column, I'll show how Rep. Pelosi easily matches Sen. Reid's record for stupidity if not idiocy and I'll suggest more issues for the McCain/Palin ticket. I'll document how the Democrats now are not only the party of retreat and defeat but also the party of conflict of interest.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us

"(O)nce war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

"War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

"In war there is no substitute for victory."

Familiar to every graduate of West Point, the words are from the farewell address of Gen. MacArthur, to Congress on April 19, 1951, after he was relieved of command in Korea by Harry Truman.

Two years later, however, Dwight David Eisenhower, a general as famous as MacArthur, would agree to a truce that restored the status quo ante in Korea.

For the first time since the War of 1812, the United States was not decisively victorious. We had preserved the independence of war-ravaged South Korea. But the North remained the domain of Stalinist strongman Kim Il-Sung for 41 years.

After Korea came Vietnam. The United States did not lose a major battle and departed in early 1973 with every provincial capital in South Vietnamese hands. But the war was lost in April of 1975, when Saigon, its military aid slashed by Congress, fell to an invasion from across the DMZ.

Vietnam introduced us to what no generation of Americans save Southerners had ever known: an American strategic defeat.

Now we are about to enter our eighth year in Afghanistan and our sixth year in Iraq. In neither is victory, in the MacArthurian sense, assured. Indeed, "victory" may be unattainable, says America's most successful general, David Petraeus, who asserts he will never use the word in speaking of Iraq. "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade."

Why will Operation Iraqi Freedom not end like Gulf War I, where Gen. Schwarzkopf led the victorious army up Constitution Avenue? Because, whenever a truce is achieved through power-sharing, it often proves to be the prelude to a new war, when the power shifts.

In Iraq, the Shia-Sunni struggle remains unresolved. The Maliki regime wants the Americans gone so it can settle accounts with the Awakening Councils and Sons of Iraq we armed to eradicate Al-Qaida. The Kurds are moving to cement control of oil-rich Kirkuk and expand into Iraqi Arab provinces.

Of that other war over which he has assumed command, Gen. Petraeus says: "Obviously the trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction. ... You cannot kill or capture your way out of an insurgency that is as significant as the one in Iraq, nor, I believe, as large as the one that has developed in Afghanistan."

"We can't kill our way to victory," adds Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs. We are "running out of time."

Mullen earlier said he's "not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan."

The British commander, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, is even gloomier. The British people, he says, should not expect a "decisive military victory. ... We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghani army."

Carleton-Smith is euphoric alongside Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, ambassador in Kabul, who is quoted in a letter to the prime minister as saying NATO strategy in Afghanistan is "doomed to fail."

Before either a President Obama or McCain sends 10,000 more troops into Afghanistan, he should conduct a review as to whether this war is winnable, and at what cost in blood, money and years.

Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history. Why have we not yet won? First, because we lack the forces. In World War I, we put 2 million men in France in 18 months. In World War II, 16 million served, with 12 million in uniform at war's end. Today, we have 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Why so few troops? Because, despite what Americans say, few truly believe the survival of the Hamad Kharzai regime is vital to our security or that we would be in mortal peril should the Taliban return. Indeed, Petraeus says we should seek "reconciliation," presumably with the more moderate of the Taliban.

Converting enemies into allies with bribes or access to power may not be as dramatic as a Marine flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. But if reconciliation can end these wars successfully -- assure us neither nation is used as a base camp for terror -- would that be unacceptable? As Sun Tzu wrote, the greatest victories are those won without fighting.

For America's great wars, MacArthur and Eisenhower were the right generals. For today's wars, where the threat is not mortal and there will be no surrender signing in a railway car at Compiegne or on the deck of a battleship Missouri, Petraeus seems the right man -- and appears to have no need of an Eisenhower jacket or corncob pipe.

Hat Tip To Mrs. Johnson From The Left Coast.

Tuesday, October 7

Look Up

Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.
Luke 21:28

Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost said, "God, the architect of the ages, has seen fit to take us into His confidence concerning His plan for the future and has revealed His purpose and program in detail in the Word. A greater body of Scripture is given to prophecy than any other one subject, for approximately one-fourth of the Bible was prophetic at the time it was written."

As we see all these things unfolding before us, we shouldn't shake our heads in bewilderment or hang them in despair. The Bible tells us to lift up our heads. Our redemption is drawing near.

Israel is God's timepiece; its foundation is the supersign.weighty evidence that we are indeed living in the endtimes.
Tim LaHaye

 www.earthtimes.org

Vienna - A youth leader of the Austrian right-wing Freedom Party was found guilty Monday of inciting religious hatred against Muslims, and received a suspended prison sentence. As the leader of the Freedom Party's youth organization in Graz, Michael Winter, 20, had suggested in a newsletter last year that that Turkish Muslims were in the habit of committing bestiality.

The charge is that Michael Winter accused Muslims of "bestiality" and his mother, who will also stand trial, said Mohammed was a pedophile. The problem the charges are true. First bestiality.

Goat300 Bestiality

Is there a proper Muslim way to have sex with animals? Indeed, there is!
Guidelines for sex with animals can be found in the writings of
Ayatollah Khomeini. Two excerpts from his writings serve to clarify the
matter.

"A man can have sex with sheep, cows and camels and so on. However, he
should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the
meat to the people in his own village; however, selling the meat to the
next door village should be fine." Don't the buyers deserve a discount
of some kind?

Khomeini's "Tahrirolvasyleh" fourth volume, Darol Elm, Gom, Iran, 1990

"If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their
urine and their excrement become impure, and even their milk may no
longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as
possible and burned." What if it was really good and invites another lap
or two? Must animals always be one-night stands?

comments

London, Oct 7 (IANS) Man in the developed world has stopped evolving, a British genetics expert has said, because they no longer have to struggle to survive and natural selection does not come into play any more.

Going by his argument, any hopes of man evolving into something other than the current human state are left with the developing world, where tools of evolution are not thwarted in the absence of modern medi-care and higher standards of living.

The people living one million years from now, should man survive, will resemble modern-day humans.

"We now know so much about the process of evolution that we can make some predictions about what might happen in future," Jones said in a lecture here Monday.

Evolution is driven by natural selection and mutation. Genetic mutations create traits which, if helpful, give individuals a competitive edge over rivals.

Take natural selection. Before modernity, life was so tough that most children died before they reached adolescence. It was a race for survival and only the strongest made it, making out a case for natural selection. This means babies with genetic mutations that made them more resilient had better chances of survival as well as passing on their genes to their offspring.

Jones' argument is that in a modern world of central heating and plenty of food, the same mutation is far less likely to give a child any advantage. A baby born today can expect to live a long and healthy life, which in turn works against the evolutionary tool of natural selection.

Referring to mutation, Jones expounds the view that it too is slowing down. It is because there are fewer older fathers in the West. Older men's sperm deteriorates and contains more genetic mistakes which in turn can lead to mutations in their children.

Cell divisions in males increase with age. "Every time there is a cell division, there is a chance of a mistake, a mutation, an error," he is quoted in The Times as saying.

A third factor - randomness - is also an important ingredient in evolution. Small populations that are isolated can change at random as genes are accidentally lost, he said. But as the world's population becomes increasingly connected, the opportunity for random change is dwindling.

Jones said: "Worldwide, all populations are becoming connected and the opportunity for random change is dwindling. History is made in bed, but nowadays the beds are getting closer together. We are mixing into a global mass, and the future is brown."

What he means is inbreeding is becoming less common as the globe becomes smaller.

Referring to Britain, Jones said: "In Britain, one marriage in 50 or so is between members of a different ethnic group, and the country is one of the most sexually open in the world."

Jones is not the only scientist to believe mankind will struggle to evolve from its present state. In his book 'Future Evolution', Peter Ward, a paleontologist at the University of Washington, claims that only by interbreeding and allowing bioengineering can a new species emerge.

But Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum, London, said the idea that evolutionary pressures were no longer taking their toll on humanity was true of only Western civilization, according to Scotsman newspaper.

Another genetics expert, John Wilkins of the University of Melbourne, has already dismissed him.

Wilkins wrote on his personal blog: "Evolution has not stopped, nor even, I warrant, slowed appreciably. Sure, large populations tend to evolve less quickly than smaller ones for good stochastic reasons, but populations are partitioned.

'It may be in England that one's partner has ancestry from a long way away, but there have been mass migrations in the human past before, in Africa when the cultural technique of animal herding spread southwards 2,000 years ago, and before that in the period from around 3000-1500 BCE from central Asia to Europe and back. Genes do not stay in one place for very long in evolutionary terms. Jones is mistaking small temporary effects for evolutionarily significant ones."

Lisbon - A Portuguese online bank unveiled a novel interest rate deal on Monday by letting clients bet on the outcome of the US presidential election.

Banco Best's customers will be awarded interest on their 60-day deposits on the basis of whether they bet correctly on the winner of the November 4 US election between Barack Obama and John McCain, the bank said in a statement.

If they pick the winner, they will be rewarded with interest of 8%, applied retroactively from November 4 to the day they opened the account.

If their bet is wrong, they will get just 2% interest.

Banco Best will offer up to €10m of the so-called McCain/Obama Deposit, which can be subscribed to online (www.bancobest.pt) at any time until November 3.

The bank said it will also provide an online barometer of deposit holders' expectations of the election result.

- Reuters