Germanic invaders may not have ruled by apartheid

When a strong Germanic signal was discovered in the Y-chromosome of British men, geneticists at University College London suggested that enslavement and apartheid imposed by Saxon invaders was responsible.

It was an idea that, given 20th-century European history, had a particular resonance.

The argument is, that from AD 430 to 730, the Germanic conquerors of Britain formed an elite, with a servant underclass of native Britons. Inter-marriage was restricted, and the invaders and their genes flourished.

"But it is just not necessary to assume an apartheid-like system," argues John Pattison of the University of South Australia in Adelaide. "The evidence is compatible with the idea of a much more integrated society."

Lengthy influx
Pattison reviewed existing archaeological and genetic evidence, and conducted a new analysis of British DNA. Then, starting in 2001 and working backwards to pre-Roman times, Pattison calculated for each generation the net population growth and the origins of immigrants.

He concludes that people with Germanic origins came to Britain well before and after the early Anglo-Saxon period, and this long period of immigration can explain a relatively strong Germanic genetic signal today.

He adds that about 60% of the current British population still has some native Briton DNA, arguing against the idea, put forward by Mark Thomas at University College London and colleagues that Saxon invaders ethnically purged the country.

The textual and archaeological evidence collected by Thomas's team is also controversial, says Pattison.

Brutal times
While the Anglo-Saxon King Ine of Wessex did formulate a code that imposed heavier taxes on native Britons than Saxons, for example, this might have been intended to encourage reluctant Britons to fully adopt the new Germanic culture and language, and to label themselves "Germanic", rather than to penalise an underclass, Pattison argues.

Overall, he says, the evidence suggests the picture of life in early Anglo-Saxon Britain was not as dismal as that portrayed by Thomas and his team.

"It was still the Dark Ages. People were pretty brutal and there was a lot of fighting going on – but it wasn't necessarily as grim for the Britons as has been suggested," he says.

Chris Tyler-Smith, an evolutionary geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK, does not think we have seen the end of the "apartheid" debate. "It emphasises for me how much room there is for interpretation," he says.

Journal References: Pattison study – Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0352); Thomas study – Molecular Biology and Evolution (19: 1008)

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn13752

If only they WOULD be silent about it!

Court Rules Unanimously: Illinois School Must Allow "Be Happy, Not Gay" T-shirt

We read:

" The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reversed a lower court's ruling against an Illinois student Wednesday, saying the district court must order a Naperville high school to suspend its ban on a T-shirt that reads "Be Happy, Not Gay" while the student's lawsuit proceeds. School officials prohibited student Alex Nuxoll, who is represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, from wearing the clothing.

"Christian students shouldn't be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum. "Public school officials cannot censor a message expressing one viewpoint on homosexual behavior and then at the same time allow messages that express another viewpoint. The court's ruling is a victory for all students seeking to protect their First Amendment rights on a school campus."

Nuxoll, a student at Neuqua Valley High School, desires to express his perspective at various times throughout the year, including the next school day after the "Day of Silence." Other students at the school are permitted to wear shirts with messages supporting homosexual behavior as part of the "Day of Silence," which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. The 7th Circuit ruling prevents school officials from singling out Nuxoll's message for censorship.

Source

Parents warned of 'hate speech' during homosexual celebration

We read:

"A principal in a Massachusetts school district with a well-established reputation of promoting homosexuality to students has written to parents to tell them distributing "religious materials" during the school's annual observance of the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" is not appropriate.

The letter from Michael Jones of Lexington, Mass., High School also confirms "hate speech" is "subject to legal constraints" and messages communicated through slogan T-shirts, buttons or stickers that express "condemnation" are "discouraged." Students with such a message will be counseled by school officials to meet the guidelines of the school handbook, he wrote.

However, groups that have been given his approval are allowed to hand out promotional materials to others and positive messages about the "Day of Silence" such as "Vocal Supporter" and "Silent Supporter" fall under free speech guidelines, Jones said.

Source

Leftists always seem to think that the law does not apply to them.


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

THAT WAFFLE WAS MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

Obama's now-famous remark: "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" has been much noted. Google has over 19,000 mentions of it. And the message taken from it has generally been that Obama is a haughty elitist who does not like to be questioned. I think that there is much more than that to it, however. Read the following report from last month to put it in context:

Early morning trainers and exercisers at the Greenville, Miss., YMCA on Mississippi primary day last Tuesday got a taste of Sen. Barack Obama's reclusiveness, which the traveling press corps has learned to accept.

After speaking at Tougaloo College on Monday night, Obama went to the "Y" at 6:30 a.m. for a workout. He greeted nobody and did not respond when people there called out to him. That aloofness has been the pattern in the Democratic presidential candidate's behavior toward reporters who cover him.

After finishing his workout, Obama returned to his gregarious campaign mode with a visit to black-owned Buck's restaurant in Greenville before leaving the state. He won Mississippi comfortably against Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Source

The above quote and the waffle remark are both telling us the same thing: That Obama has difficulty keeping up his "nice guy" image. Keeping it up quite simply wears him out. It is not who he really is so keeping up that image tires him and he just HAS to rest from it. It is not who he really is.

And as someone who has studied psychopathy (I have a couple of academic journal articles on the subject) that is very familiar. Psychopaths also typically present a "nice guy" image -- something that sucks in the females wholesale. The psychopath says and does all the right things and people promptly put their trust in him. And then when they least expect it, he "goes bad" on them. "Why did he do that?" is the typical distressed response, "He was so nice and then he went and did ....".

The sucker in the story gets very thoroughly betrayed and has no clue as to why the psychopath suddenly changed. The answer, of course, is that the nice guy act was all a pretense in the first place and because it was not genuine the psychopath just could not keep it up for long. The "change" that distressed the sucker was the mask being dropped and the psychopath reverting to his true type.

And that is what we see in both reports of Obama's behaviour above. By the time he got to his waffle he just could not keep up his act, even under the full glare of media scrutiny. He HAD to have a rest from acting. So the Obama we see on the campaign trail is just a false front for the very dismal soul that lies beneath it. If America elects Obama, it will not get what it voted for. It will get a horror. An entire nation will have been conned.

Bill Clinton is a psychopath too. He too is known for suddenly "losing it" at times. But Slick Willy was led around by his penis. Obama will probably be led around by the hate that he sucked up in listening to 20 years of Jeremiah Wright's preaching.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

“Right to speak extinguished”

The heading above appears today on an article about the progression of the Olympic torch through Canberra. But it could have been about lots of other places as well. The "right to speak" that was extinguished was in fact the right to harass and disrupt a legitimate and peaceful sporting activity. Like most people in the Western world, I think that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is deplorable but that the authorities have the obligation to erect barricades etc to protect the torch-bearers from aggressive Leftist demonstrators is also undisputable to any reasonable person. It was not the right to speak that was suppressed but the right to make an arsehole of yourself.

If attention-seeking Leftist demonstrators could be relied on to act peacefully, there would no doubt have been the right and opportunity to hold up any number of placards etc. but we know how peaceful the preachers of peace in fact are so if anybody suppressed the right of people to speak it was the thugs who made countermeasures to their aggression necessary.

And that the Chinese sent counter-demonstrators to protest against the protestors is entirely proper in a democratic society. It's an inevitable consequence of taking your politics to the street. But it was not the Chinese who initiated that. Both sides are entitled to their say and if one side uses disruptive tactics the same is to be expected back.

The Prime Minister of Australia went to China recently and -- speaking in Mandarin Chinese -- personally conveyed to the Chinese leadership the disquiet that most Australians feel about China's actions in Tibet. THAT was adult politics and an action that Australians can be proud of. There was NO silencing of what most Australians want to say to the Chinese leaders. Far from it.

The writer is however a depressed and alcoholic drug abuser so perhaps he can be forgiven his stupidity. How a piece so lacking in balance and perspective got published in "The Australian" is the real mystery. I guess it was seen as something that would give Leftists a horn.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your summary of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Immigration among top social evils in UK

Immigration and responses to the phenomenon are among the 10 social evils afflicting British society, a survey released on Sunday by a major think-tank said. According to a survey by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the British people feel a deep sense of unease about some of the changes shaping British society. The 10 social evils pointed out by the respondents were: individualism, greed, decline of community, decline of values, drugs and alcohol, poverty and inequality, decline of the family, immigration and responses to immigration, crime and violence and young people as victims or perpetrators.

On the social evil of immigration and responses to immigration, some participants felt that local residents lost out to immigrants in competition for scarce resources. Others criticised negative attitudes to, and lack of support for immigrants and thought society should be more tolerant and inclusive. Besides, it was felt that the British society had become more greedy and selfish, at a cost to its sense of community.

Respondents to the consultation carried out by the foundation said that Britons no longer shared a set of common values and that they had lost their 'moral compass'. The four social evils which emerged as the cause for most worry among the respondents were individualism, greed, decline of community and decline of values.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is one of the largest social policy research and development charities in the UK. It supports a research and development programme that seeks to understand the causes of social difficulties and explore ways of overcoming them.

Source

A real Dr Strangelove

I think I would be inclined to kill this hyena if I had the chance. I loathe anybody who hurts kids

A doctor at the renowned Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe. Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were "transgendered" and in good shape socially, "but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity. "I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier," he said.

"We don't think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this," said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. "It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things."

WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman's body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that "gender identity." Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who "decide" they are female walking into women's restrooms and locker rooms.

"Is this our future?" asked Mass Resistance in a commentary. "Dr. Norman Spack runs a clinic for young children who've 'decided' they are transgendered. Among other things, the clinic administers powerful hormones to delay (or even stop) puberty in order that the children more easily undergo operations that mutilate their bodies to 'change' them to the opposite sex." "This is going on at the world-renowned Children's Hospital in Boston - not some backwater clinic. This is the elite of the medical profession," the organization said.

In a question-and-answer session with Globe columnist Pagan Kennedy, she starts the apologetic for doing surgery on children by saying, "Little boys sob unless they're allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James." "Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care - and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?" she asks. But Spack, she wrote, has started a clinic that "is one of the few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies."

She reports he uses drugs to delay puberty, "granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female." Spack tells the interviewer he's seen "preadolescents" who have been dressing in underwear of the opposite sex "for years." "The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy," he said. He's based some of his work on a Dutch model for sex-change, and said the recommendations there are age 16 for hormones that forever change a child's body.

But "for others," he wrote, "you lose opportunities if you wait. [One of my patients, a] transgendered girl from the UK, was destined to be a 6-foot-4 male. With treatment, she's going to end up 5-foot-10." He said such treatments not only change the physical characteristics of the growing children, but also could leave them sterile for life. "You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. . But if you don't start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in," he said.

"This isn't conjecture," Mass Resistance' commentary said. "It's happening now. And 'transgenderism' is being promoted to kids by homosexual/transgender activists in the public schools." Children as young as 12 already have been given the treatment.

Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has reported that Spack previously acknowledged that only about 20 percent of children who claim to have a confusion over their gender hold those feelings in adulthood. The hospital itself calls the program "unique in the Western hemisphere." "This will be the first major program in the country that . [is] also welcoming young people who appear to be transgendered and are considering medical protocols that might help them," Spack said.

Source

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Are "Christian Seders" Inappropriate for Passover?

I am rather pleased that some Bible-oriented Christians are at last taking Christ's command seriously and celebrating the Passover instead of the pagan Easter. My entire Scripture blog was devoted to noting how far away most Christians have drifted from what the New Testament actually says. Michael Medved comments wisely below:

Rabbi Mark Glickman of the very liberal Reform branch of Judaism recently wrote a Seattle Times column decrying Christian congregations that celebrate their own Passover Seders. Rabbi Glickman claims the Seder was developed long after the Exodus events it commemorates, and was supposed to convey powerful anti-Christian messages, making Christian participation inappropriate.

In truth, there's nothing in the ancient formulation of the Passover Haggadah-the book of Seder liturgy-that disrespects or contradicts Christianity or Jesus, and most Jews passionately disagree with Rabbi Glickman. Retelling the story Exodus and affirming Jewish faith doesn't amount to an attack on Christianity - any more than affirming Christian faith amounts to an attack on the Old Testament or Judaism.

The two religions certainly disagree on key theological points, but share a commitment to remembering God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage as a liberating moment in human history. Christian rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity is actually good for Jews, Christians and humanity.