Consanguinity and miscegenation


Consanguinity refers to the degree of "blood" (genetic) relationship between two people, first cousins, second cousins etc.

Christian churches  have always had some prohibions against consanguinity in marriage.  At one time it was forbidden to marry even your 7th cousin, though more usually the prohibition stretched only to 4th cousin.  These days almost anything goes.  Only brother/sister relationships are really frowned on.  

From a geneticist's viewpoint, consanguinity prohibitions do have some benefit.  If a person has a genetic defect, such as a deformity, it is usually found in more than one member of a family.  But it is often the case that the defect is recessive, meaning that it only becomes visible in the progeny  if both partners to a marriage have it.  So marrying "out" reduces the chances of that happening.  

Another benefit  is "hybrid vigour", meaning that the progeny from quite different bloodlines are often more healthy, vigorous etc than either of the parent populations.  So consanguinity prohibions undoubtedly helped keep Christian populations healthy.

The scene is very different with Islam.  The laxity of Muslim divorce law means that a woman and her children have no security or protection from her marriage.  She can lose her marriage and any bebefits  it conveys in a matter of minutes.

So how does she get any security in her marriage?  She has to rely on social pressures, and family pressures in particular.  If her husband is her cousin and he tries to divorce her, both families will come down heavily on him with condemnations.  So that is why consanguinity in marriages, cousin marriages, is  very common in Muslim populations

And the genetic consequences follow as night follows day.  In Britain, almost all birth deformities presented to the NHS come from Muslim families. 

That is all reasonably well known but I want to extend the point a little further.  Mental abilities such as IQ are a brain function and the  brain is just another organ of the body. So cousin marriage should affect that too.   There should be a lot more poorly functioning  brains among Muslim populations.  Real bright sparks should be rarer.  And they are.  The average IQs in the Middle East are markedy lower than they are in Europe, around 90 compared to 100 in Europe.  So Muslims exemplify well the laws  of genetics.  Their failure to regulate consanguinity has dumbed them down and made them less fit generally on average.

So how does that affect interracial marriage or "miscegenation"? It should in theory be an extreme example of the benefit of avoiding consanguinity. The progeny of such unions should display hybrid vigour.  And  I have seen many rather obvious examples of that happening -- where one of the parents is East Asian, usually Chinese.  I have often seen good-looking and very capable offspring from such unions.  Australia's population is about 5% Chinese by ancestry and young Chinese-origin  women often choose Caucasian men as partners, almost invariably tall ones, so Eurasian children are common.  I have written at some length on Eurasians  in Australia below:

http://jonjayray.com/eurasian.html

But now we come to the tricky one: black/white  marriages. Miscegenation was historically forbidden in America but the grounds for the ban are not entirely clear. There was a clear belief that whites were superior in many ways so mixed race chidren were undoutedly regarded as inferior, but in what way was not systematically argued. Should not mixed race children benefit from hybrid vigour?

It would seem that they have done.  The term "black" is very loosely used in America today  -- covering skin tones from almost Mediterranean to literally black  And in the "black" population, lighter skinned blacks cruise. They are generally looked up to by other "blacks".  They are more prestigious.  And part of that prestige is probably fairly earned.  They probably really are healthier and more capable.  But it is a topic that would be too fraught to study systematically.  I have probably said too much already

But, as even the APA has conceded, the black/white gap in average IQ in America is still large.  The APA has put it as one standard deviation, which is a lot.  The gap is even greater if we consider blacks back in Africa so miscegenation in America has reduced the average black/white IQ gap but not by a lot.

But however you look at it miscegenation has been BENEFICIAL

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Our Obsession With Control over nature


Paul Abela below seems to think it is self-evident that mankind has no right to control nature. He bolsters that view by saying that changes in the natural world could be disastrous to us and implies the non-sequitur that therefore we should not make changes to the natural world. So he thinks there is both a moral and a utilitarian case for us to meddle as little as possible with nature.

The utilitarian case is easy to refute: Civilization exists BECAUSE we have modified nature extensively. Modifying nature has been very GOOD for us and there is no reason to think that the control over nature that we have is suddenly going to harm us. It could conceivably do so but we are more than ever able to foresee problems coming our way and are more able to prevent those problems from actually arriving or to adapting to them in various ways if they do arrive

The moral case is simply a bald assertion with no supporting argumentation. It runs up against the old philosophical conundrum of how do we find out what is right and wrong? Most analytical philosophers claim that there is no objective instance of right or wrong. It exists in the mind of men but different minds have different ideas of what it is. Is killing babies wrong? The ancient Greeks did not think so and they were highly civilized. So we cannot doubt Paul Abela's enthusiasm for nature but we are perfectly entitled not to share that enthusiasm. Mankind DOES have dominion over nature and there are no philosophical or utilitarian reasons to overturn or limit that


It will cost you anywhere between $32,000 and $200,000. If you can afford it, you’re knowingly signing up for something that has a high risk of death. If you overcome any lingering fears you’ll see plenty of the 322 victims entombed in ice as you struggle slowly towards your destination. Climbing Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is not for the faint-hearted. But that doesn’t stop 800 people attempting to summit the mountain each year, with plenty of others waiting in line. It’s a dream for thousands, but it’s a bit of a head-scratcher as to why.

The desire to summit Everest is a product of an obsession that has come to define our relationship with nature. We are addicted to overcoming its boundaries. To tame it. To defeat it. To beat it. The world constantly pits ‘man vs nature’. We compete against it and are obsessed with ‘beating’ it — even though it has no idea it’s competing. And in ‘defeating’ it, we believe we have somehow overcome it.

This obsession with control is deep-rooted in the human psyche. It stems from the idea that nature exists in service of humanity, a belief that has its roots in religion. In Genesis 1:28, God commanded the human race to have dominion over every living thing. A belief shared by the ancient Greeks and best exemplified by Aristotle, who argued, “plants are evidently for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of Man; thus Nature, which does nothing in vain, has made all things for the sake of Man.”

Little has changed in our attitude to living animals in the last 2000 years. There is a definitive hierarchy of which man is at the pinnacle. Wild animals, which are now remarkably few in number, are slaughtered by poachers to sell their ivory, fur coats, or other body parts. If wild animals aren’t slaughtered, they are placed in zoos for us to gawk at.

Unbelievably, as late as 1969, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defined conservation as the “rational use of the environment to achieve the highest quality of living for mankind.”

Driven by ego

Our ambivalence to nature and the attitude that it exists in service of man has led to an exploitative relationship developing. Man is driven by ego, we are separate from nature and behave as if it exists for us to do as we please.

Take our framing of the climate crisis as an existential risk that could destroy Earth. It will do nothing of the sort. The climate crisis is a crisis because it will destroy the conditions humanity needs to thrive on Earth. If those conditions change it will remain a haven to life, but that life will take a different form. One that is conducive to thriving in the new environmental conditions that are set to prevail.

It’s humanity that has a problem. Not Earth. Yet, our ego-driven, human-centric view of the Earth means the idea Earth could exist without humanity is incomprehensible.

We have formed a relationship with nature based on being some arrogant controller. How different things would be if humanity had an ‘eco’ perspective, and we used our intelligence and ability to work in symbiosis with nature for the common good. If we felt responsible and duty-bound to look after the Earth and act as its guardian.

Forget about all of that. The benefits to us are all that matters — any negatives to the environment are dismissed as inconsequential — externalities that don’t exist when money and profits, the things that are prized above all else, are there to be made.

The idea that nature may have some intrinsic value is nonsense. Its only role is to create value for humans if and when we choose to use it. That’s why 100 million sharks are killed each year for their meat and to make delicacies such as shark fin soup. It’s why over the last 50 years 17 percent of the Amazon Rainforest has been deforested. It’s why the African Elephant is mercilessly poached so we can slice off their tusks and use the ivory to make jewellery. The tragic ongoing ‘elephant holocaust’ means the African elephant faces extinction.

Our obsession with control needs to be placed into context. Throughout human history, arguably up to the beginning of the twentieth century, we’ve had anything but control. Most people lived on the edge of existence, one failed crop away from famine and starvation. The natural world was dangerous, inauspicious, and brutal. There was little understanding of the processes and rules governing nature.

The image of mother nature being some kind of nurturing force is a product of modern society. As the political scientist Robert Inglehart puts it in The Silent Revolution, for our ancestors, “one’s life expectancy is approximately thirty years. A woman spends most of her adult life in pregnancy and child-bearing, burying most of her offspring before they have grown out of childhood.” To sum it up, life was brutal and full of suffering.

Our ancestors may have believed God gave us dominion over the natural world, but it is only in modern society that we have truly begun to control nature. This ability is the result of the powerful combination of science and technology.

Knowledge is power

Scientific breakthroughs best exemplify the axiom that knowledge is power. Science helps to understand the natural world; technology is the application of this understanding. The combination released humanity from the limits set on pre-industrial societies and led to vast improvements in human well-being. One of the most profound is the eradication of viruses that plagued humanity.

Smallpox, the deadliest disease in human history, is estimated to have killed three hundred million people in the twentieth century alone. Having launched a vaccination campaign against the virus in 1967, the World Health Organization declared its successful eradication in 1977. This triumph is a marvel of modern science.

The ultimate visual expression of our control over nature is the city. These human ecosystems have become enormous in scale. Greater Tokyo, home to 38 million people stretches to 22,000 km². There are 34 megacities with populations of over ten million people.

When you look at a city, you look at a cityscape, not a landscape. The human ecosystem exists outside of nature and separates man from it. It is the ultimate expression of how we have tamed nature and moulded it to suit our needs.

The problem we have now is that technology provides us with too much control. Technology has made us so powerful we’re changing the environmental conditions we need to sustain civilization. This fact would have been incomprehensible to those living a few generations ago. It’s still a little incomprehensible now.

We’ve always existed in a technological age so we take our reality and the high living standards it provides for granted. If the outcomes of our technological age weren’t so apocalyptic, this ability to control the world would be astonishingly impressive.

The way we interact with the environment has transformed beyond recognition and yet we still maintain a deep-rooted desire for control. If we have any chance of overcoming the ecological crisis our relationship with the natural world must transform.

As awareness of our impacts on the Earth has increased, environmentalism has flourished. There have never been more people who not only have an appreciation for the wonders of the natural world, but are seeking to restore it and live in harmony with it.

Environmentalists call for a shift to an eco perspective. This call stems from a place of humility and is grounded in an awareness that nature doesn’t need us to survive, but we depend on it for every conceivable thing.

If the environment changes, we risk suffering social collapse. There must be some kind of acknowledgement that this isn’t a mutual relationship. Earth isn’t benevolent, it doesn’t exist to serve humanity.

The thing is, you can't just wipe the slate clean and reimagine our relationship with nature. While the numbers of environmentalists swell, the human relationship with nature remains dominated by the arrogant controller. As long as it is, we will continue to disregard our influence on the natural world and hurtle towards a future of profound suffering. Seeing how deeply rooted our relationship with nature is, maybe that’s precisely what’s needed to create an epiphany. To shed the shell of the egotistical controller and embrace the humble eco guardian.


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Coalition push to make promoting crime online an offence, with powers to take down violent content


By general agreement, incitement to violence has always been subject to censorship and prosecution so this in not a far-out proposal but the devil is in the detail.  The laws against it in various jurisdictions try to define what it is and set bounaries to it but prosecutions under such laws have been difficult and there are controversial cases

The problem is particularly great when it comes to religion. The Bible in Leviticus calls homosexuality an abomination and orders offenders to be killed.  A court in Finland is prosecuting a Christian woman over that text at the moment.  And many Muslims justify calls for aggression against Jews on words in the Koran.  So laws meant to punish ordinary criminals could ensnare religious true believers

So I think Peter Dutton is walking into a quagmire if he is serious about this.  Very tight definitions might protect people against any abuses of such laws but tight definitions  would probably also make convictions difficult. 

Australia has long had laws against "hate speech" but even attempts to enforce them have been rare.  Judge Mordechai Bromberg's absurd conviction of Andrew Bolt under section 18C of the RDA in a race-related prosecution seems to have chilled all further urge to action.  As Bromberg is Jewish, everybody wants to walk away from the potential complexities of the matter


Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has called for powers to take down harmful online content to be extended to social media posts "glamorising" violence and criminal activity, with new offences to punish those who "post and boast".

The Coalition will introduce a private members bill into parliament next week that would grant the eSafety commissioner powers to issue take-down orders and criminalise the act of promoting crime online.

The bill would create a new Commonwealth offence to criminalise posting material that depicts violence, drug offences or property offences to increase a person's notoriety, punishable by up to two years' imprisonment.

It would also provide sentencing options to ensure courts could prohibit individuals convicted of that offence from using social media for up to two years.

The commissioner's current take-down powers only allow posts to be removed with the cooperation of the hosting social media company.

Mr Dutton said the offences were a "common sense" proposal that he urged the government to support.

"I hope that the government is able to pick it up quickly because I think Australians want an answer from the prime minister about what we can do at a federal level," Mr Dutton said.

"When I was a policeman many years ago you'd go to a break-and-enter, largely it was someone breaking in to steal goods or money to fuel a drug habit.

"Today we know cars are being stolen and people's houses are broken into ... because kids if they're part of a gang or if they're part of a culture where they can post an image of a motor vehicle ... or a designer handbag, or if they're standing in a bedroom with an elderly lady asleep or cowering behind them, that brings them great kudos online, and it gives them notoriety, and it glamorises their crime."

Renewed calls to turn the tide on youth crime

Dubbed a "wicked" problem with the power to shape elections, youth advocates fear punitive measures will fail to address the underlying causes of crime. 

The Coalition has campaigned on issues of crime in recent weeks, both ahead of the Dunkley by-election in Victoria and the Queensland state election due to be held in October.

Monthly crime data shows there has been a long-term trend downwards of crime in Queensland and fewer young offenders as a percentage of all offenders, however assaults, rape and shop thefts have risen since 2003.

Crime rates also appear to have returned to trend after dropping off during the COVID pandemic.

Some states have already moved to ban criminal "posting and boasting", with New South Wales announcing earlier this week it would create new penalties for people who shared vehicle thefts or break-and-enter offences, and make it tougher for young people to get bail.

University of Queensland Associate Professor Renee Zahnow said "posting and boasting" laws already existed in Queensland, but they had been difficult to enforce.

Dr Zahnow also said posting crimes was an issue beyond content that promotes those acts, and that governments should also be thinking about crimes posted out of community safety concerns, as well as crimes that identify victims.

"The government and police pick up on the posting and boasting because that's the most offensive to the public. But the other thing we need to start to think about is more broadly not just when people are putting up their own offences and boasting about it, but they can still get the same infamy from other people putting up posts on them committing offences," Dr Zahnow said.

"[And] If the victim is involved they are automatically identified."

Dr Zahnow said if the eSafety commissioner were granted takedown powers, those could also extend to powers to pull content that identifies victims of crime.

But she noted even though there were benefits to "posting and boasting" laws, they would do little to actually reduce youth offending.

"They're not going to stop crime rates. Young people who are doing this stuff don't care. You don't steal a car and put your video online of you doing it, and then think, 'Oh someone is going to charge me for putting it online.'

"[however] we might not see changes now ... and it's very hard to measure, but the benefit might be that we don't see other young people do these offences later, maybe the young brother, or the young kid who lives down the street."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/dutton-push-criminalise-social-media-crime-promotion/103586388


Understanding national conservatism


National conservatism sounds suspicuously like Trumpism, particularly on trade issues. "Free trade" has always sounded good to conservatives but Trump showed that it should not be  an all-powerful consideration.  

And Trump was not really being unorthoox in his trade restrictions.  Economists have always recognized exceptions to the desirabiity of free trade: "Infant industry" and the "Australian" cases for instance.  And the "supply-chain" difficulties presently besetting trade rather vindicate that



The Economist, the British magazine well-known for its particular metropolitan liberal worldview, had a pearl-clutching cover piece last week where it bemoaned ‘the growing peril of national conservatism’.

‘It’s dangerous and it’s spreading,’ the editorial warned its readers – making it sound like some new Covid variant.

What exactly is national conservatism?

Australians could be forgiven for being a little in the dark, for while there have been national conservative conferences in Washington DC and Florida in America, and in London, Brussels, and Rome in Europe, there has been nothing similar so far here. There are no mainstream Australian journalists who describe themselves using that label. Nor, unlike elsewhere, are there leading politicians or any groupings in any of our mainstream parties who march under that banner. I have found it a struggle to get those involved in the think tank world and in centre-right politics in Australia to even understand the concept properly.

The Economist labelled national conservatives as those ‘seized by declinism’, ‘the politics of grievance’, and those who see the ‘state as its saviour’. But that is unfair and does not do this intellectual movement justice. National conservatives have a deep philosophical critique of the assumptions held by policymakers in the capitals of the West. As some of the leading intellectuals of the movement, like Yoram Hazony, have explored in great depth, they are critical of aspects of classical liberalism and the dominant worldview which over-emphasises the sovereign individual, rather than the family, the nation, and our religious traditions as the source of our prosperity and freedoms. They believe the focus in centre-right circles has, in recent years, gone awry. In the words of Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, it is time to ‘put conservatism back into its traditional sphere of national identity’.

Perhaps the most obvious areas where national conservatives differ from the current centre-right are in relation to immigration, trade, and foreign policy.

First and foremost, national conservatives reject the long-standing consensus on immigration. They believe that mass immigration perhaps poses more of an existential threat to the West than Soviet missiles ever did. Nations like Poland and Hungary recovered from years of communist domination. But it is far less clear whether parts of Western Europe and elsewhere will survive the ethnic conflicts and other threats to social cohesion that have been carelessly imported into their homelands. This is not simply about ‘stopping the boats’ or ‘building the wall’ – although many Western governments struggle to do even that. It is emphatically also about legal immigration. There needs to be a reassessment from first principles as to what level and what type of immigration, if any, makes sense for Western nations and our peoples going forward. In the Howard era, there was an oft-repeated line that because the government was able to control illegal immigration Australians welcomed higher levels of legal immigration. If that was ever actually true, it is not true now.

National conservatives also recognise that the trade and investment policies of the West need a serious rethink. They reject the idea that the end goal, beau ideal, should be open borders trade and investment between nations, without regard to their differing economic, social, or political circumstances. To be clear, this means large numbers of Australia’s existing trade and investment agreements, including but not limited to, the one we signed with China, will need to be torn up or at the very least significantly redesigned. Our trade and investment policies have created boom towns in places like Shenzhen and Bangalore and rust belts in places like Stockbridge, Elizabeth, and Youngstown. They have gutted our national industrial capacity and destroyed communities. They have turned us into exquisite connoisseurs of imported goods, rather than producers of anything other than primary produce or overpriced housing to sell to foreigners. The idea, so beloved by The Economist, that it should be as easy to import manufactured goods from China to Australia as it is to import the same from England to France needs to be consigned to the ash heap of history.

National conservatives also believe that our foreign policy needs to change. The reckless evangelicalism that has characterised Western military adventures for well over the last quarter century needs to stop. What is needed is a new prudence that is focused instead on our vital interests (narrowly defined) and which is far more selective about the conflicts we allow ourselves to be dragged into. Large numbers of our people are simply sick to the back teeth of endless and pointless wars in places like Somalia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. These are places that they do not really care that much about, but which they or their children have been expected to die for. These interventions always seem to follow a similar storyline: some bad guy is the ‘next Hitler’, a particular incident is the ‘new Munich’. Unless we get involved and offer unlimited economic or military support, we are Neville Chamberlain-like appeasers. Certain politicians then get to globe-trot around the globe pretending they are the next Winston Churchill. Inevitably what then follows, many years later, is a loss of blood, treasure, and national prestige, the destabilising of entire regions and a flood of refugees, and all manner of second-order unintended consequences. In nearly all cases these are not grand ideological struggles, but messy intractable ethnic disputes where there are no pure actors on either side.

There are other areas of policy where national conservatives have new and constructive things to say, including on social policy – where a reconstitution of family structures and traditional ways of life is going to be as important as the reconstruction of our national borders and identity. But if there is one theme that unites this movement, it is that they are anti-Utopian. The left was in the past the utopian ones, the ones who liked to ‘imagine there is no countries’. But since the great victory in the Cold War the centre-right has also become increasingly un-moored from reality. It has ignored the importance of the nation-state when it comes to trade, immigration and foreign policy and many other issues. All national conservatives are asking is that we get real again.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/understanding-national-conservatism/

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Must not be skeptical about the Holocaust


The lamebrains of the Left seem blind to the fact that prosecuting skepicism about the holocaust cretes the impression that it is really a false story.  Why get so heavy about it if it is truth? 

As recent upsurges of vocal antisemitism over Palestine have shown, suspicion of Jews is still widespread in Europe so this conviction will simply reinforce antisemitic ideas, not reduce them.  Trying to shut someone up creates the impression that they have something important to say


A court in Belgium sentenced prominent far-right activist Dries Van Langenhove to a year in prison on Tuesday for running an organization that a judge said spread “racist, hateful, Nazi and negationist speech,” in a major ruling on how the nation deals with extremism.

Five members of the extremist group that Van Langenhove led received suspended sentences, including two who work for the far-right Flemish Interest party, which is slated to make big gains in June elections.

Tom Van Grieken, the leader of the Flemish Interest party, said the ruling was proof that “Belgian justice is rotten to the core” and called the proceedings “a political trial from day one.”

They were accused of using a chat group to exchange racist, antisemitic and other extremist comments. Van Langenhove, a former Belgian parliamentarian, also had some of his civil rights suspended for a decade, making him ineligible for office.

Investigative journalists from the VRT public broadcaster were at the heart of the case as their 2018 documentary on Van Langenhove's Shield and Friends group highlighted its public and private militaristic and extremist activities.

"The defendant raved about Nazi ideology, which has caused and continues to cause untold suffering to countless people. The file showed that he wants to undermine democratic society and replace it with a social model of white supremacy,” said Judge Jan Van den Berghe.

The chats on the Shield and Friends site included the most macabre jokes and memes on anything from famine in Africa to Holocaust concentration camps.

Van Langenhove, 30, said he did not commit any crimes.

“A years-long investigation, on which the Justice Department wasted millions of euros of taxpayers’ money, shows that the ... activists cannot be charged with anything other than some memes. Humor. Memes that I didn’t even post myself,” he said in a reaction.

Some of the parties in the case lodged complaints following the VRT documentary.

“The ridiculing of gas chambers, of incinerators, that was so over the top for me that I spontaneously lodged a complaint,” said Henri Heimans, a former magistrate whose parents survived the Nazi death camps. “Then, of course, I unwittingly ended up in a procedural battle that lasted for years.”

Van Langenhove was not at the court in Ghent, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Brussels, but his lawyer said he would appeal the ruling, which automatically suspends his imprisonment. He was also fined 16,000 euros ($17,470).

Right-wing extremism, racism and antisemitism has been on the rise through much of Europe, and far-right political parties have made big inroads in many European Union nations over the past few years. They're set to be a key issue at the June 6-9 EU elections.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/belgium-court-convicts-prominent-activist-1-year-jail-108042850

Another pathetic PFAS study


PFAS is a class of chemicals that is totally harmless to humans. But because there is a lot of it around the do-gooders are determined to find something wrong with it. They have been at it for years -- always finding nothing like what they theorize. Attention-whore Erin Brockovich was one of the early players. The latest attempt is below. As usual, no harm from PFAS was found. But they scratched around in their data to find something to talk about

They were, fortunately, honest enough to admit that their reults were inconclusive.  But the results were more than inconclusive.  They totally vindicated PFAS.  I simply quote from the journal article:

"In the overall analyses, no associations were found between PFOA, PFOS, or PFHxS and the clinical lipid measurements when adjusting for age, sex, and education"

Get that:  NO ASSOCIATIONS



Toxic chemicals lurking in cookware, make-up and toiletries might be harming the heart, another study suggested today.

Scientists have for years warned about the dangers of perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Dubbed 'forever chemicals' because they can linger in the environment for hundreds of years, they have been linked to everything from cancer to infertility.

But the latest evidence by Dutch and German researchers suggests that the impact of PFAS on human health could be even greater than suspected. 

Tests showed 'clear' signs PFAS led to higher levels of 'harmful' blood lipids, such as cholesterol and other fatty substances. 

Excess lipids or fats in the blood can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, studies show.

The findings do not prove the chemicals, added to cookware, carpets, textiles and other items to make them more water- and stain-repellant, cause any adverse heart issues because other factors could be at play.

Scientists said the results, however, should serve as a warning that 'there may be no safe levels below which exposure is without health hazard'.

Study author Professor Monique Breteler, director of population health sciences at German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), said: 'We see clear signs of a harmful effect of PFAS on health. 

'We have found at the same PFAS concentration in the blood, the negative effects are more pronounced in younger subjects than in older ones.

'Our data shows a statistically significant correlation between PFAS in the blood and harmful blood lipids linked to cardiovascular risk.'

However, she noted: 'The higher the PFAS level, the higher the concentration of these lipids. 

'Taken strictly, this is not yet proof that PFAS chemicals cause unfavorable blood lipid profiles.'

PFAS are a class of chemicals that are more properly known as per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. 

Famed for their durability and stain resistant properties, they have been used in a host of products from nonstick cookware, to clothes, packaging, cosmetics and even children's toys. 

But industries are now moving away from them because of their detrimental impacts. 

When PFAS enter the body either through food and water that people eat and drink or by inhaling contaminated air, they can distribute throughout the body in tissues and organs.

PFAS has previously been linked to kidney cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer, among others. 

While these links are not definitive and research is ongoing, part of the concern is because PFAS are so ubiquitous in modern life and persist so long in the environment they could infiltrate water supplies, further increasing exposure.

The Government's Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) currently sets a limit of 0.1 micrograms per litre (μg/L) for PFAS in UK tap water, with the body running a specific programme testing for levels in British water supplies.

In their study, researchers at DZNE and Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands analysed blood samples from over 2,500 Dutch men and women aged between 30 and 89. 

PFAS were detected in the blood of almost all test subjects.

Professor Breteler added: 'Even if we don't see an immediate health threat for the study participants we examined, the situation is still worrying. 

'In the long term, the increased risk may very well have a negative impact on the heart and cardiovascular system.'

The findings, based on three of the most common types of PFAS (PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS) were published in the journal Exposure and Health.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13186847/chemicals-scientists-toxic-PFAS-blood-heart.html

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Taking two popular supplements after the menopause could raise women's risk of heart attack


I have reproduced above the original headline of the article below. It is totally misleading. The research was high-quality and if you look at the the orignating journal article what you find is that "There was no overall effect on other measures, including all-cause mortality". In other words taking the pills did not help you live longer or shorten your life. The pills increased your risk of heart attacks but reduced your risk of cancer, with the two effects almost perfectly balancing one-another out. So old ladies will not be harmed by those pills. They will live just as long with or without them.

Another important inaccuracy is that the pills are not usually taken "to stave off the effects of menopause". HRT is used for that. The pills in this case are used to prevent crumbling bones. So the pills may give some comfort without killing you. That sounds like good news to me


Taking two popular supplements after the menopause could raise women's risk of heart attack, according to major 20 year study

US researchers followed more than 30,000 women for two decades. They found that those who took certain supplements had raised heart risk

Taking supplements to stave off the effects of menopause could leave you more vulnerable to cardiovascular disease, according to a landmark study involving 36,000 women.

Researchers from The US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute looked at the health outcomes of roughly 18,000 women who took daily calcium and vitamin D pills for seven years - all of whom were between the ages of 50 and 79.

They followed the women up 20 years later, and compared the incidence of heart disease and cancer to a group of a similar number who didn't take supplements in their later years.

The results, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that those who'd taken the pills - which are said to strengthen bones - had a six percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, compared to the other group.

However, those in the supplement arm of the study were also seven percent less likely to die from cancer.

Notably, the authors said the increased risk of cancer was only seen in those who had been taking supplements in their younger years, before the study launched.

This is the largest randomized trial of women using these supplements, according to the study's authors.

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Wishy Wilson is back, madder than ever


He has launched a tirade of Warmist claims with no scientific foundation whatsoever.  But he is marijuana-dependent these days so perhaps we should cut him some slack

He is something of an elitist so Green/Left views are to be expected of him, though he is more extreme than most.  His past as a Duntroon student and an investment banker certainly confirm his elitist identity

He is also an enemy of Christmas.  That is he in the centre below


Note about his hyphen:  Hyphenated names can arise in a number of ways but ususally a Miss Whish (say) decides that she is really too grand to marry a mere Wilson (say) so marries on condition that all her children are known as Whishes as well as Wilsons.  So Peter's hyphen would seem to betray a certain inherited arrogance.  But Greenies think that they are the real people and the rest of us are cattle so he is clearly in the right party.


Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has criticised Labor for failing to protect The Great Barrier Reef, saying the Albanese government’s policies have Australia “on track to blow through the two degrees warming threshold.”

“Warming oceans caused by the burning of fossil fuels is the single greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and still Labor wants more coal, more gas and more Reef destruction,” Mr Whish-Wilson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Try as they might, Labor’s attachment to the “drug dealers' defence,” that if we don’t export it someone else will, is meaningless to the protection of the Reef.,” he said More

Mr Whish-Wilson said a 99 per cent decline in the world's coral reefs will ensue if the threshold is broken, including the world’s largest living organism, the Great Barrier Reef.“The only thing that will save the Great Barrier Reef is an end to fossil fuels. That starts with saying no to new coal and gas. This is the bare minimum required to give the Reef a chance of survival," he said. “After two years in government, Labor refuses to do what is required to protect the future of the Reef. Only the Greens in balance of power will implement a climate trigger and take action to stop the fossil fuel cartel before it destroys our climate and the places we hold dear.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/politics-latest-unions-bosses-blast-nsw-icacs-antijobs-intervention/live-coverage/6d01ff5938414276b5819921c4ec809b#137996

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Drumgold still in trouble




If ever a man has been destroyed by his own political correctness, it is Shane Drumgold, SC.  He abused his position as prosecutor to launch a very weak rape case against Bruce Lehrmann, because "believe the woman" was all the rage. And to help a weak case to stand up he said a number of things that have come back to haunt him.  

I feel sorry for him.  He clawed his way up to a prestigious position depite humble origins in Mount Druitt.  But the battle apparently left him insecure so he was unable to resist media pressure to prosecute.  He lacked the self confidence that would have come from a private school background  -- the usual background for a barrister

I too have a humble background and went to no school at all for my university entrance qualification but I have never aspired to public prominence.  Economic and academic success has been plenty for me.  Good interpersonal relationships are the only important form of success as far as I can see and my record there has been mixed.  One wonders how Drumgold's second marriage is faring


Five Australian Federal Police ­officers have begun defamation action against the ACT government over allegations by former chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold that they engaged in “a very clear campaign to pressure” him not to prosecute the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.

Lawyers for the five officers have sent a concerns notice to the government and to Mr Drumgold over his allegations against them, which included that they had ­engaged in “consistent and inappropriate interference” in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann.

The allegations were made in a letter Mr Drumgold sent to ACT police chief Neil Gaughan on ­November 1, 2022, expressing concern over “some quite clear ­investigator interference in the criminal justice process”.

The letter sparked the Sofronoff inquiry into police and prosecution conduct in the Lehrmann case, which largely exonerated police and found that Mr Drumgold’s assertions were baseless.

One of the AFP officers told The Australian the letter had ­“destroyed careers and destroyed people’s lives”. “When you’re in a profession where integrity is ­pivotal, if you lose your integrity, if it’s suggested that you are corrupt or you’ve trying to pervert the course of justice or influence something, it just goes against the grain,” the officer said.

“I don’t think people appreciate the impact that this whole ­debacle over the four years has had on individual police officers. We did nothing wrong, and we are paying the price.”

The concerns notice – a precursor to defamation proceedings – comes just days after the ACT government apologised to former Liberal minister Linda Reynolds and paid $90,000 in damages and legal costs over accusations by Mr Drumgold in the same letter that the senator had engaged in “disturbing conduct” that included political interference in the police investigation.

Mr Drumgold authorised the release of the unredacted letter after talking to a journalist from The Guardian, who then lodged a Freedom of Information request.

The letter, containing the DPP’s suspicions of impropriety against the named police officers and Senator Reynolds, was ­released without any of the ­consultations or redactions ­required by law. The FOI application was determined and executed within four hours of being considered for the first time.

The Sofronoff inquiry found that suspicions Mr Drumgold formed during his early interactions with the investigators “predisposed him to see non-existent malignancy in benign inter­actions between the police and the defence at the trial”.

Mr Drumgold complained police were speaking with the ­defence at the trial during ­adjournments. However, it was not surprising police felt deep antipathy towards the DPP since the feeling was mutual, the Sofronoff inquiry found. “Mr Drumgold did not seem to appreciate that mutual trust is a two-way street. It was he who, at the first opportunity, formed the baseless opinion that the investigators were improperly trying to thwart a prosecution.

“This inquiry has thoroughly examined the allegations in Mr Drumgold’s letter. Each allegation has been exposed to be ­baseless.”

Late in giving his evidence, Mr Drumgold “finally resiled from his scandalous allegations,” ­inquiry chair Walter Sofronoff noted. Mr Sofronoff said that “any official writing a letter of that kind would also know that copies of the letter would have to pass through many hands and that there was a real risk that it would be made public”.

“In fact, it was with the help of Mr Drumgold himself that the letter defaming others made its way into a newspaper.”

Mr Sofronoff found no police acted improperly: “The evidence before me showed that the investigators consistently acted in good faith and conducted a thorough investigation … Nobody suggested to me that the investigation was flawed in any way.”

The police had made mistakes, Mr Sofronoff said, including conducting a second interview with Ms Higgins that was not likely to produce anything useful and which caused her distress.

“None of these mistakes actually affected the substance of the investigation and none of them prejudiced the case … I do not find that any police officer breached a duty or acted improperly.”

One of the officers bringing the defamation action was critical of the ACT government’s attitude towards its police force. “The ACT, it’s a bubble here. It is a very closed shop and I think some of the people in these positions are batting way above their weight. Two police stations are closed because the government hasn’t invested. They have no care for the police at all. The number of police that are off due to stress, or leaving, it’s phenomenal.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/police-officers-sue-over-shane-drumgold-claims-that-destroyed-lives/news-story/8ce9e4ca7168b4846a2355e6ba1a3c3f

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Wrong to call called a London police officer “a stupid white bastard”?


It appears to be a criminal offence in Britain. One would think that a policeman would be accustomed to abuse and would see it as all in a day's work

On the other hand, what if the cop had been black and was called a "stupid black bastard"? In that case the abuser would undoubtedly have had the book thrown at them

The Left are in a huge pickle over this. They do not want a popular brown woman to be described as racist but they have difficulty expaining how an explicitly racist comment is not an explicitly racist comment

Their difficulty stems from their own past politiical opportunism when they have descibed any comment about race as indicating racism. That stupidity has come back to haunt them


The moment Samantha May Kerr made her Matildas debut at the age of 15, everyone watching knew there was something special about her. From her uncanny ability to sniff out a goal, to her strengths in the air, and her unaffected charm – Kerr’s career trajectory was as thrilling to watch as it was to enjoy once she reached the heights of global esteem.

But no amount of penalty shootouts, World Cup appearances or Women’s FA Cup finals could prepare Kerr for the pressure she’s under now after news broke that she’d been charged with causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to a London police officer.

It has since come to light, via British tabloid The Sun, that Kerr allegedly called a police officer “a stupid white bastard” during a dispute over a taxi fare on January 30 last year. She reportedly vomited in the cab after a night out and is alleged to have made the slur when police arrived.

Many will question whether the alleged slur satisfies a criminal threshold. Where a black and white argument starts to become grey is whether or not the alleged remark amounts to a form of racism. We know little of the detail but we know this much: a white, male police officer is accusing a lesbian, female footballer of Indian heritage of racism.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/if-sam-kerr-was-a-straight-white-housewife-would-she-stand-accused-of-racism-20240306-p5faf7.html

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California Transformed Prisons to the ‘Norway Model,’ Insiders Reveal the Deadly Cost


This is an old, old story. Claims that "humane" treatment of serious criminals will "reform" them go back at least a century, with the Glasgow Barlinnie experiement being best known. The Barlinnie experiment pulled out all stops, including significant funding, to rehabilitate offenders, but in the end most offenders backslid to criminal ways once released. The sad truth is that it needs harsh treament in prison to have much deterrent effect on future offending

It is true that treatment of offenders is lighter and recidivism is lower in Switzerland and the Scandinavian nations but the populations concerned are not the same. In both Glasgow and the United States, levels of criminality are higher to start with. Glasgow Saturday nights are notorious


Prison reforms in California aimed at rehabilitation and release are a ticking time bomb according to current and formerly incarcerated individuals, whistleblowers, active and retired correctional officers, and other staff who spoke to The Epoch Times.

As part of the reforms, which are based on Norway’s model, California’s prisons are moving away from punishment and toward rehabilitation, education, and re-entry.

The transformation dovetails with a decade of sentencing and parole reforms as authorities move to depopulate and close facilities statewide.

But the reality inside California’s prisons, insiders say, is increasingly dangerous for both inmates and staff.

In the first six weeks of 2024, there were six homicides in California prisons, according to the corrections department. Five were inmate-on-inmate homicides and one involved a correctional officer shooting an inmate to prevent him from fatally stabbing another inmate.

Additionally, an Epoch Times review of the department’s statistics reveals a dramatic increase over the past several years in total incident reports, as well as in important categories including assault and battery on inmates and officers, use of force, and sexual assaults.

From January to October 2023, the most recent data available, there were 17,993 total incident reports—compared to 14,138 and 12,717 for the same periods in 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Assault and battery incidents on corrections officers and non-inmates have risen steadily from 2021 through 2023, the latter increasing 35 percent from January to October 2023 over the previous year. In the same period, assaults on inmates rose 29 percent, use of force increased 46.3 percent, and sexual assaults jumped 62 percent.

Patrick “Jimmy” Kitlas, who began serving a life sentence in 2007 and is now eligible for parole, told The Epoch Times by phone that there have been many “really sweeping and drastic” policy changes—but they are often contradictory or not implemented.

“This place has definitely become a less structured, a less secure, and a much more violent place,” he said from San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where he’s been since 2015.

Mr. Kitlas and others who spoke to The Epoch Times blamed a top-heavy administration disconnected from reality on the ground.

“The guys up top who aren’t actually in the buildings with the officers and inmates providing custodial supervision, they’re making a lot of insane and violence-provoking policies without regard to the staff that have to enforce them,” Mr. Kitlas said.

A new policy will often hit inmates and staff at the same time, he said, resulting in chaos.

“No one ever seems to really have a firm grasp of where the policy came from, what its purpose is, and how is the best way to implement it—which is super dangerous,” he said.

San Quentin is California’s oldest prison and one of the country’s most notorious, conducting all of the state’s executions since 1937. Now, it’s the blueprint for California corrections reform, offering innovative programming to help inmates like Mr. Kitlas transform their lives, overcome trauma, and become community leaders.

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There’s One Thing Husbands Love More Than Sex


I am reluctant to believe this. Or at least I ask what is the frequency of this? It sounds plausible but is surely found only in shaky marriages. But all women should undoubtedly take note of it.

Even my ex-girlfriend strokes my bare skin on appropriate occasions. I recognize and enjoy it and see it as something that normally accompanies affection. I hope I am far from alone in that experience


Women’s jaws would drop if they could listen in on my conversations with married men. Our discussions contradict just about every misconception wives utter about their husbands.

Husbands don’t want to hurt. They don’t want to argue. They don’t want to control. And they definitely don’t “just want sex”.

These guys are desperate for her to know the truth. And they shed tears at the thought that their wife may never WANT to know the truth.

The truth for these men lies in the end of her pinky finger. In that finger is packed an unspeakable power many wives choose to ignore or have yet to discover.

It’s so simple and so tender that men are afraid to even ask for it. We barely talk about it with each other! We don’t want to appear soft. We don’t want to risk a woman’s reaction to our weakness.

What is it?

It is the power of a delicate, skin-to-skin touch of feminine acceptance and approval.

When a woman calmly grazes the end of her pinky finger across any part of a man’s body and offers a verbal or non-verbal vote of confidence or support, his world changes at that instant.

It is so powerful we are often left speechless. Our throats and tear ducts begin to swell and we quietly indulge in the comforting reassurance of the moment. If we could package the word “love”, it would feel like this when the bottle was opened.

Our “well-being meter” pegs out and our heart rate and breathing slows.

Every husband I know is dying to feel this. Simple, easy-peasy feminine acceptance and approval. Nothing else. Just…this.

A World of Men Speak About Pinky Power

These are real examples of how men across the globe describe it. In every case I can hear their clenched voice of vulnerability trying to sound “strong” as they speak. Just for fun, try to imagine their accents as you read these.

Oklahoma

“She reached over during the movie and put her hand on my knee and looked at me and smiled and said ‘I’m happy you brought us here, thank you.’ ”

Alberta

“She touched my arm and giggled and called me ‘stud’ “

UK

“She scratched the top of my head for about two minutes and didn’t say anything. It was awesome.”

Turkey

“She touched my elbow and whispered, ‘You’re such a good father and a sweet man, I love that about you.’ “

Jordan

“When I told her about my idea for a better vacation spot she grabbed my arm and said, ‘I f#cking love you!’ “

New Zealand

“She just reached across the car seat and scratched the back of my head softly as I drove. It’s intoxicating.”

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Sydney University abandons maths prerequisites in diversity push


I think this is a step in the right direction. I was always bad at maths at school but became a capable computer programmer using a demanding language called FORTRAN, which literally means "formula translation". A line of FORTRAN code looks very much like a line of algebra. And I did write programs requiring up to 5-dimensional matrices.

So I was good at something maths-related that would normally have required a maths prerequisite. But I would have been blocked by such a prerequisite these days. Prerequisites are simply too rigid to account for varying patterns of abiity in students


The University of Sydney is ditching the advanced mathematics prerequisites for scores of degrees in response to the declining number of HSC students taking the subject.

Vice chancellor Mark Scott said maths teacher shortages meant too many students could not study the subject in year 12, providing a barrier for diverse students to study at the university.

“Mathematical skills and knowledge are vital for students to succeed at university and thrive in the workplaces of the future,” he said.

“Yet through no fault of their own, many students don’t have the opportunity to take advanced mathematics at school, a situation exacerbated by ongoing maths teacher shortages that affect some schools more than others.”

The prerequisite change, to begin next year, is a reversal of much of the changes brought into effect in 2019 that introduced two unit maths prerequisites for 62 degrees.

That was supposed to address falling enrolments in maths and lift academic standards at the university.

However, the latest data from the NSW Education Standards Authority shows there were almost 10 per cent fewer students taking advanced maths in 2023 compared to 2018.

Scott, a former NSW Education secretary, said the university would provide “bespoke mathematics support” which would include tailored assistance and advice, preparatory workshops and bridging courses to catch students up.

The change will mean degrees including commerce, science, medicine, psychology, veterinary science and economics will no longer require students to have undertaken advanced maths in year 12.

Degrees in engineering, advanced computing and pharmacy will retain the mathematics prerequisite.

From next year, year 12 students who achieve a Band 3 or higher in advanced mathematics will also be eligible to receive an additional point towards their selection rank under the university’s Academic Excellence Scheme.

University of Canberra University associate professor Philip Roberts, a rural education specialist, said a lack of access to advanced mathematics was a huge issue, particularly in regional and low SES areas.

“Our research shows that schools which have larger numbers of low SES students are not studying advanced maths at the same rate as schools which have higher SES students,” he said.

He said teacher shortages were making the issue worse, but that it was also driven by a perception by students they would score better in general maths.

Roberts said even when universities did not have calculus-based mathematics prerequisites, students who did not take HSC advanced maths were still behind their peers who had once they started their degrees.

“Advanced maths also contributes more to their overall ATAR, so a lack of access limits their opportunities of getting into uni,” he said.

University of Sydney deputy vice chancellor (education) Professor Joanne Wright said it was clear it was harder for some students to access higher-level mathematics simply because of where they are from.

“Schools in regional and remote locations are significantly less likely to offer advanced and extension mathematics,” she said.

“Our new approach responds to these realities of the student experience today and ensures we’re better equipping students for their university studies and careers.”

She said new tools were being developed to identify gaps in students’ knowledge, including a pilot of a diagnostic tool designed to match students with the most appropriate learning support services when they enrol.

“Regardless of their starting point, all our students will have the opportunity to complete their studies with the same level of mathematics skills and knowledge,” Professor Wright said

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NYC public school officials grilled about plan to comply with controversial class-size law


This old, old class size fetish is ridiculous.  There are plenty of instances of kids in large classes doing well.

It is teacher quality that matters and good teachers are largely  born, not made.  There are only so many good teachers around regardlesss of what teacher-training courses they undergo, so class size limitations can cause a lot of barely competent teachers to be hired, thus HARMING, not helping the education of the kids.

Below are links to some of my old posts on the matter that give more detail:

https://edwatch.blogspot.com/2006/11/public-school-class-size-doesnt-matter.html

https://edwatch.blogspot.com/2007/06/class-size-where-belief-trumps-reality.html

https://edwatch.blogspot.com/2008/03/great-class-size-myth-i-note-that-gos.html

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City Department of Education officials were grilled Thursday about their plan to comply with a controversial state law that requires Big Apple public schools to reduce class sizes across the board by 2028.

The City Council hearing on the issue came as the legislative body’s education committee introduced legislation that would require the DOE to report data twice a year on the actual size of classes at all schools and special programs. 

“Here’s my issue, the people that are making the decisions have never taught in New York City public schools,” Committee on Education Chair Rita Joseph told the panel of DOE officials during the hearing.

“You must apply the law,” added the council member, a veteran educator, challenging the DOE’s argument that it needs more funding to hire more teachers in order to comply with the mandate.

Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks have called on lawmakers to provide $1.4 billion to $1.9 billion — the projected cost of hiring between 10,000 to 12,000 educators — to help the city comply.

According to DOE’s “Class Size Reduction Plan” update, nearly half of all classes currently fall under the size caps set by the law. But the department’s plan noted that more work will be required

DOE Deputy Chancellor Emma Vadehra said the administration supports the goal to lower class sizes but reiterated that more work needs to be done in the 2025-26 school year and beyond to meet the requirements.

“In brief, we are currently fully in compliance with the class size legislation. In the coming years, however, we do have work and we will face some difficult choices to maintain compliance,” Vadehra told the education committee.

The department’s First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, NYC School Construction Authority President and CEO Nina Kubota and District 23 Superintendent Khalek Kirkland made up the rest of the panel speaking to the committee.

“Our work is not complete without New York City planning to make these changes and enact those changes,” Jackson said.

Liu said he doesn’t “begrudge” Adams and Banks over the mandate being fiscally difficult to deal with, but maintained a plan for compliance needs to be made transparent.

“The reality is, they’re in control of the public schools, and even though they did not make this problem, this problem they inherited, it is their responsibility to fix it,” he stressed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature — under intense lobbying from the United Federation of Teachers union — approved the law in 2022.

It states that grades K-3 must have a maximum of 20 students, with 23 students in grades 4-8 and 25 students in grades 9-12 by the 2027–28 school year.

Earlier, Joseph held a rally with parents, educators, advocates and elected officials on the steps of City Hall in support of the law.

“The DOE has an incredible opportunity to change the educational lives of students by implementing class laws,” said Michael Sill, the UFT’s assistant secretary, who was at the rally.

“Sadly, the DOE’s engagement thus far has been typified by inflating cost estimates and inventing excuses for not doing what needs to be done,” Sill told The Post.

“While revenues are up, the reserves are overflowing, and the state has invested in New York City’s young people, the city continues to push a false austerity narrative that is designed to frighten the public.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew claimed the DOE was “trying to sabotage the law.”

“Parents want this. Educators want this. We challenge the DOE to identify the schools that have the space right now to make this change and get started,” he told The Post.

“We ask the City Council to help us hold the DOE accountable.”

https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/us-news/nyc-public-school-officials-grilled-about-plan-to-comply-with-controversial-class-size-law/

Ultraprocessed foods are 'harmful to EVERY part of the body'


The academic journal article behind this report is

https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310

The title is:

"Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses"

The BMJ tends to be rather opinionated

I suppose I should see this report as a brave endeavuor but I am instead inclined to find it hilarious.  It is a meta-analysis of meta-analyses.  The big flaw with meta analyses is what is excluded.    In one analysis of a topic that I had often written on, only two of about 100 of relevant papers by me were included in the analysis.  Which two?  The only ones that had something favourable to say about the conclusions the aurhors drew!  Huge bias towards confirmatory research is well known.  I am glad that I have survived to age 80 so that I can continue to point that out

And the present report  quite properly admits that they gave more weight to some reports than others.  But to which reports did they give most weight?  Ones that they found most "convincing".  So the selection of what to rely on had a clear and admitted subjective element.  And since their conclusions are very  congenial to the conventional wisdom about diet, we can be pretty sure that they were more easily convinced by reports that were  congenial to the conventional wisdom about diet. They simply joined the crusade about the evils of highly processed food.  Their article probably tells us more about what they believed than what is the case.  

For many years I have had the pernicious habit of reading journal articls right through rather than adopting the academic vice of relying only on the abstract.  And it is amazing how often the conclusions correspond much more closely to the initial hypothesis than to what was actually found as reported in the "Results" section.  Reports relying on extreme quintiles in their analysis are almost all suspect  of that.

So a wagon of sodium chloride could well accompany any reading of this report


Diets high in ultra-processed food may be harmful to every part of the body, a major review of research found.

Eating a lot of foods such as ready meals, sugary cereals and mass-produced bread is linked to an increased risk of 32 health problems including cancer, type 2 diabetes and mental health disorders.

Often high in fat, salt and sugar and low in vitamins and fibre, researchers found 'convincing' evidence higher consumption was associated with a 50 per cent greater risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke.

In the biggest analysis of evidence to date involving 10million people, researchers found those eating the most had between a 40 and 66 per cent increased risk of dying from heart disease. 

They were also significantly more likely to be diagnosed with obesity, lung conditions and sleep problems.

Likening it to tobacco, they said 'public policies and actions are essential' to curb intake and called on public health officials to urgently develop guidelines and 'best practice' for ultra processed foods.

In a linked editorial, they suggest foods are clearly labelled when 'ultra-processed'.

UPFs refers to items which contain ingredients people would not usually add when they were cooking homemade food.

These additions might include chemicals, colourings, sweeteners and preservatives that extend shelf life.

Restrictions should be placed on advertising and sales 'prohibited in or near schools and hospitals,' they say.

Governments need to adopt national dietary guidelines recommending varieties of minimally processed foods, they say, while taking steps to make freshly prepared meals cheaper and more accessible to all.

The UK is the worst in Europe for eating ultra-processed foods, making up an estimated 57 per cent of the national diet.

They are thought to be a key driver of obesity, which costs the NHS around £6.5billion a year.

Often containing colours, emulsifiers, flavours, and other additives, they typically undergo multiple industrial processes which research has found degrades the physical structure of foods, making it rapid to absorb.

This in turn increases blood sugar, reduces satiety and damages the microbiome - the community of 'friendly' bacteria that live inside us and which we depend for good health.

Food additives like non-nutritive sweeteners, modified starches, gums and emulsifiers also seem to affect the microbiome, levels of gut inflammation and metabolic responses to food which may also increase risk of heart attack and stroke.

An umbrella review conducted by academics in Australia analysed 14 review articles published in the last three years which associated consumption with poor health outcomes.

Evidence was graded as convincing, highly suggestive, suggestive, weak or no evidence.

There was convincing evidence higher intake was linked to a 50 per cent greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease, a 12 per cent greater risk of type 2 diabetes, and a 48-53per cent greater risk of developing anxiety.

There was 'highly suggestive' evidence that eating more ultra-processed foods can increase chances of dying from any cause by a fifth, according to findings published in the BMJ.

This was also the case for when it came to obesity, type 2 diabetes, sleep problems and dying from heart disease, which all showed between a 40 to 66 per cent heightened risk.

Researchers from Deakin University, Australia, also found a 22 per cent greater risk of developing depression and a 21 per cent greater risk of death from any cause.

The evidence between UPF intake and asthma, gastrointestinal health, some cancers, and intermediate cardiometabolic risk factors remains limited, they said.

In an accompanying editorial, academics from Sao Paolo, Brazil said: 'Overall, the authors found that diets high in ultra-processed food may be harmful to most—perhaps all—body systems.'

They wrote: 'No reason exists to believe that humans can fully adapt to these products. 

'The body may react to them as useless or harmful, so its systems may become impaired or damaged, depending on their vulnerability and the amount of ultra-processed food consumed.'

They added: 'It is now time for United Nations agencies, with member states, to develop and implement a framework convention on ultra-processed foods analogous to the framework on tobacco.'

Further research to determine the different mechanisms by which these foods impact health is also vital, they said, but should not delay policymakers from making urgent changes.

Scientists said there were limitations to the study, including inconsistent data collection methods in the original research.

Commenting on the findings, Gunter Kuhnle, Professor of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Reading, said: 'Many studies also show that people who consume a lot of ultra-processed foods also have an unhealthy lifestyle and therefore a higher risk of disease.

'Although many studies attempt to adjust for this, it is virtually impossible to do so completely.'

A government spokesperson said: ‘We are taking strong action to encourage healthier food choices and to tackle obesity – recognising that it is the second biggest cause of cancer and costs the NHS around £6.5billion a year – while respecting the importance of individual choice.

‘We have introduced calorie labelling on food sold in restaurants, cafes and takeaways to empower people to make informed personal choices about their lifestyle, and thanks to our salt reduction programme, the amount of salt in food has fallen by around 20 per cent.

‘Pre-packed foods are required to set out a variety of information to aid shoppers – including a list of ingredients and nutritional data.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13135781/processed-foods-cigarettes-expert-cancer-heart-lung-disease.html

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Antarctica's sea ice drops to an 'alarming low' for the third year in a row, scientists warn


Here we go again: The ice loss is almost entirely in Western Antarctica, which is known for subsurface vulcanism. And volcanic eruptions are unpredictable, which is what they found. Nothing to do with global warming

Antarctica's sea ice has dropped to an 'alarming' low during the southern hemisphere's summer, scientists have revealed.

Ice surrounding Earth's southernmost continent now measures less than 772,200 square miles (2 million sq km), or about the size of Mexico.

Worryingly, this is the third year in the row that this figure has fallen below this threshold, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Less sea ice can threaten habitats for penguins, seals and other Antarctic animal life, and also contributes to a rise in global sea levels.

Unfortunately, it follows a record-breaking low for Antarctica's sea ice during the winter as well.

What is sea ice?

Sea ice is simply frozen ocean water. It forms, grows, and melts in the ocean. It floats on the surface of the sea because it is less dense than liquid water. In contrast, icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves all originate on land.

Sea ice is estimated to cover around 7 per cent of Earth's surface and about 12 per cent of the world's oceans.

The lion's share of sea ice is contained within the polar ice packs in the Arctic and Southern oceans.

These ice packs undergo season variations and are also affected locally on smaller time scales by wind, current and temperature fluctuations.

Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at NSIDC, said experts 'don’t yet know the full reason' why sea ice is now at a record low, although 'global warming certainly could be a factor'.

'It appears that warm ocean temperatures are important, but other factors may be in play, including wind patterns,' he told MailOnline. 'We have only 45 years of high quality data, which still may not capture all of the variability in the Antarctic sea ice.

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Study: Air Pollution Increases Chances Of Breast Cancer By 45%, Prostate Cancer By Up To 28%


GIGO: Garbage in garbage out. This is just a meta analysis and the conclusions of such are only as good as the research reports surveyed. And air pollution studies are notorious for poor design leading to unsafe conclusions. I have critiqued many of them. The claims below can safely be regarded as not proven

Long-term exposure to air pollution significantly increases the chances of developing various forms of cancer, a study has claimed.

The findings of the study, which are yet to be published, have been accessed by the Daily Mail. It claims that air pollution can enhance the risk of getting breast cancer by 45 per cent and prostate cancer by between 20 and 28 per cent.

The experts reviewed as many as 27 studies for their analysis, and found that the risk of dying from breast cancer also increases by 80 per cent among people who are exposed to air pollution as opposed to those who are not.

The study said that long-term exposure to PM 2.5 can cause damage to the DNA, thereby, increasing the risk of getting cancer.

PM 2.5 are tiny particles in the air that can enter the lungs and bloodstream. The PM 2.5 limit set by the World Health Organization is 5 ?g/m3. However, most countries have failed to meet the WHO-prescribed limits.

"PM 2.5 also disrupts glands throughout the body that produce hormones. This is a particular concern for breast and prostate cancer which can be driven by hormones," per an excerpt from the study.

Air pollution was also found to be linked with a more aggressive disease and a poorer prognosis.

What do other studies claim?

The finding is mirrored by similar studies conducted over the years. A study published in the Lancet revealed that pollution caused approximately 9 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019. It included countries like China, the US, and many African and European countries.

While another study claimed that air pollution caused by fossil fuels is killing 5 million people every year across the world.

According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for about 7 million premature deaths every year. It adds that the disease burden due to air pollution is now estimated to be on par with other major global health risks.

In some cases, extremely tiny air pollution particles can even cross the blood-brain barrier and damage the neurons directly. However, Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 has especially become a major cause of concern for authorities across the globe since it is so small that it can penetrate deep into the lungs.

Air pollution can even affect your sleep. In 2017, a study was conducted in the United States to assess if it is linked with bad sleep. It was measured at one year and five years into the study. The participants also wore a wrist monitor to measure their movements during sleep.

It looked at the effects of nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 on sleep and found that people who were exposed to the most nitrogen dioxide in the past five years had a 60% increased risk of sleeping poorly. People exposed to the most PM 2.5 had an almost 50% increased risk of sleeping poorly.

Various forms of cancer continue to claim millions of lives globally every year. It is the second leading cause of death globally, accounting for an estimated 9.6 million deaths in 2018.

Between 2016 and 2018 in the UK, more than half of new cases of cancer were breast, prostate, lung or bowel cancer. Every two minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer, says the data provided by Cancer Research UK.

However, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer, with around 47,000 people being diagnosed with the disease each year in England alone. Every year, around 56,000 women are diagnosed with the disease in the UK—around 150 women a day. Some 400 men in the UK are also diagnosed with breast cancer each year.

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“White” is a Way of Life


There is a story under the above heading by Sangeeta Kalsi, who is a lady of Indian origins

The article is too long-winded for me to reproduce but her claim is in essence simple. She claims that brown perople like her are treated suspicously and as inferior by whites in the Western world. They are discriminated against because of their skin color and other differences.

She also says, however, that they can come to be treated as whites with a suntan if they behave similarly to whites.

From my observations, that is true. So skin color is not the key factor in how they are treated. It is how they behave. And that is her basic point. She gives Nikki Haley as a brown person who came to be treated as white by behaving as one. Haley was a governor of South Carolina as well as making a strong bid for the GOP presidential nomination -- so that is a good example

What Ms Kalsi seems unaware of is that she has described a basic human process that affects us all, not only Indians. We all judge others by how they behave towards us and we all get on best with people who are similar to us. It is often noted in assortatative mating, where men and women who form relationships with one-another tend to have a lot of background factors in common.

There is actually a large literature in psychology on impression formation and stereotyping and its universal conclusion is that our judgment of others changes as we get to know them. When we first get to see a person we judge him/her according to the physical characteristics that we see. And the initial reaction will be a standoffish one but that can rapidly modify as we get to know more about the person. If a person speaks in our accent and uses our slang, an easy and accepting relationship will normally result. Such a person will seem "like us" and the barriers between us will just be normal interpersonal ones.

I have summarized some of the findings of the academic psychology literature below:

So Ms Kalsi would be wise to stop "kicking against the pricks, as St Paul advises us, and accept that what she is seeing is just basic humanity

JR

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Are Leftists narcissists?

The  Mayo definition:

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism"

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662 

The Mayo clinic is America's leading hospital


Narcissism seems to be getting a  lot of press these days.  In particular, women are often being advised to be wary of  relationships with  narcissist men.  I think there is no doubt that the term is over-used.  Normal selfishness should not be confused with mental illness, where a mental illness is a loss of reality contact

Nonetheless something like narcissism can be observed in some  people who have a reasonably good grasp of what the world around them is like.  They are selfish and have a high opinion of themselves but not to a disabling degree.  They are not blind to where they stand with other people.  They are within the psychological normal range.

A related concept is need for approval.  The academic psychology literature on that is large and goes back a long way.  In that literature it is  generally seen it as weak and something to be overcome.

I see  something like narcissism and need for approval in Leftists.  But to avoid implications of mental illness I have mostly avoided those terms and instead made use of the Greco/Latin term "ego" ("Εγώ"), which simply means "I" in both languages.  Freud popularized the word to refer to the conscious self and it has now passed into common use in roughly that meaning.  I say that Leftists have  "excess ego" or "weak ego", implying that they are people who have a high opinion of themselves but that opinion is weakly held and needs a lot of propping up, similar to what we see in true narcissists

It is excess ego that they badly want to be seen as kind and wise and noble.  So it is akin to narcissism  but is not as unrealistic.  The stances they adopt generally WILL gain them approval.

A classic example that is rather politically hot at the moment is rent control.  People advocating it present themselves as "caring" about poor tenants and the policy does at first glance seem beneficial to tenants. 

 I am not going to give a lesson in economics here but suffice it to say that the  policy in fact works out very badly for tenants before long.  It reduces the number of places being offered to  tenants and makes then pay HIGHER rents for what they get

But the Leftist gets immediate credit for "caring" and that is what they want. The conservative who points out the adverse long-term consequences tends by contrast to be seen as  uncaring

I give many more case studies of Leftism in action here:

http://jonjayray.com/leftex.html

So ego need is certainly  pernicious.  It causes Leftists to advocate policies that sound good even when they are not.  An exceptionally moronic example of that  in some American cities  in recent years  has been the cry "defund the police".  Most defunders by now have become refunders but the damage done in the meanwhile has been considerable

So, Yes. Leftist ego need is a low grade form of narcissism.  It is not a clinical condition but it still does a lot of harm

It should be noted that some care is needed in talking about narcissism among non-clinical populations. Freud's seminal article on narcisissm claimed that traits of grandiosity and vulnerability covaried and that is obviously confirmed in the definition drawn from clinical experience by the Mayo clinic. 

But it should not be assumed that the same is true in the population at large. The findings of Paul Wink in particular show that in the general population, not all vulnerable peope have feelings of grandiosity and not all people with grandiose views of themselves also have feelings of vulnerability.  Wink found that the two traits formed independent Varimax factors.  

http://academics.wellesley.edu/Psychology/Wink/Two%20faces%20of%20Narcissism.pdf

But within Wink's sample, there was  a subset of respondents in which the two factors DID  go together and it is such people whom we can reasonably describe as sub-clinical narcissists. Such people will be at least strongly inclined towards Leftism.  Whether people who are simply vulnerable or simply grandiose are drawn to Leftism is at this stage unknown

My claim that Leftists are people with large but weak egos in an inference extracted from what Leftists do.  It explains what they do. But there is also some general population survey research showing that strongly Leftist views are associated with narcissism.  See the two U.S. studies by Krispenz & Bertrams below

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-04463-x

I make no claim that ego need is the whole of Leftist motivations.  As I have discussed elsewhere, there are many influences which may lead to Leftism.  See

http://jonjayray.com/leftism3.html

Chief among them would appear to be a tendency to anger.  The great outpouring of rage and hate that greeted the election of Donald Trump leaves no doubt about that. Never before has hatred been so openly expressed by so many people.  Krispenz & Bertrams also found an association between Leftism and antagonistic attitudes.  They conclude that Leftist activists "use political activism to endorse or exercise violence against others to satisfy their own ego-focused needs".

Wife’s battle for Redland Hospital MRI after husband put on six-day wait list for crucial scan


This is the sort of bureaucratic nonsense you have got to expect of Qld Health.  Note that non-urgent MRI scans were routinely and promptly  referred to Cleveland X-Ray, just across the road from where the guy was, but because he was classed as urgent he couldn't be sent there.  So he had to wait days for a scan.  Being classed as urgent DELAYED his care.  That's bureaucratic logic for you

I am fortunate to be able to go private for all my medical care so I get scans as quickly as the day I ask for one.  Note that what priviliges me is NOT the availability of better facilities.  The guy below could also have had prompt treatment except for the rigidy and buck-passing of the public health bureaucracy.  What gives me better care is that I  bypass the wooden heads of an uncaring government bureaucracy


A bayside woman has started an online crusade to get an MRI machine for a busy regional hospital after her husband spent an agonising week waiting for a crucial scan.

Capalaba’s Kirra Conlon started a petition calling for the scanner for Redland Hospital where her husband Matthew, 38, was bedridden after a catastrophic migraine left him unable to walk, speak or function properly.

Mr Conlon spent six days lying in a ward before his distressed family took action and invoked a Queensland law known as Ryan’s Rule to get him a scan appointment at another hospital.

Mr Conlon was initially rushed to Princess Alexandra Hospital on January 30 after suffering a debilitating headache, stroke-like symptoms including being unable to speak or move his arms and legs.

However, after a night in the emergency ward without seeing a doctor, Ms Conlon decided to move her husband closer to home and took him to Redland Hospital.

Mr Conlon was admitted to the hospital’s four-bed stroke ward where his paralysis and headache were treated as the side effects of a suspected stroke.

But after six days and partly regaining some mobility in his arms, he was still unable to speak.

Ms Conlon claimed the week-long delay was due to a range of reasons including that the MRI at the Princess Alexandra Hospital was fully booked.

Her husband was also denied admission to PA hospital because its inpatients got preferential treatment, she claimed.

She said a lack of ambulances to transport her husband from Redland to PA or Logan hospitals also delayed his scan.

“My husband’s GP sent out an urgent referral for an MRI to all hospitals and clinics in the region, but that request went nowhere because my husband needed a nurse to go with him because he was incapacitated,” she said.

“Incapacitated patients on the southside are limited to only using MRIs at Logan and PA Hospitals, where there are always line-ups.”

Non-urgent MRI scans were referred to Cleveland X-Ray, across the road.

Under Queensland Health guidelines, MRI scans were scheduled according to clinical need.

A QH spokesman said that could result in varied waiting times.

But doctors were not able to offer Mr Conlon a diagnosis until after he had an MRI scan, Ms Conlon claimed.

She said she started a petition after a week of “sheer hell”.

“There is no MRI machine at Redland, which is a disgrace for a hospital which is supposedly undergoing a $62 million upgrade so it can treat more critically-ill patients,” she said.

“My husband was left lying in a hospital bed for six days and could not access the appropriate treatment from a neurologist or psychologist until he had an MRI.

“It was only after the MRI (which Mr Conlon eventually had at Logan Hospital) that the specialist doctors were then able to give a correct diagnosis and start the proper treatment – which we hope was not too late.

“Even staff at Redland Hospital are going to sign the petition because they also believe that not having an MRI machine on hand is a barrier to providing proper care.”

Ms Conlon said hospital staff had reassured her of an MRI scan at Logan Hospital on Friday, February 2.

However, Mr Conlon was still waiting on Saturday, February 3 when doctors told the couple that the head neurologist had agreed to an MRI and consultation for Monday, February 5.

But the devastated couple were told on Monday, February 5, that the PA MRI was unavailable.

Mr Conlon was finally taken in an ambulance to Logan Hospital on Tuesday, February 6.

A day after having the MRI scan, Mr Conlon was diagnosed with a functional neurological disorder and treatment tailored for his condition began.

Ms Conlon said she was told another patient in the ward was taken to her scan appointment at Logan by taxi under the supervision of a nurse.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/redlands/wifes-battle-for-redland-hospital-mri-after-husband-put-on-sixday-wait-list-for-crucial-scan/news-story/ff043f93e9d8e98c3a413fa3be1b6741

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