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"MELBOURNE: The belief that babies born to first-cousins will suffer from some kind of deformities is all a myth, say researchers in Australia. "

Fifteen years ago, a strange-looking child suffering from severe physical maladies and acute retardation was brought into the office of Dr. Theodore Tarby. The pediatric neurologist regularly deals with a wide range of serious childhood diseases as a doctor with the state-funded Children's Rehabilitative Services in Phoenix. Tarby says he quickly realized he was dealing with a very unusual condition that he could not diagnose. He prepared urine samples and sent them to the University of Colorado Science Center's Dr. Steve Goodman, a professor of pediatrics who runs a laboratory that detects rare genetic diseases. Goodman soon made a startling...

A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society. Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the “elephant in the room”. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.” The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: “The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot...

A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society. Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the “elephant in the room”. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.” The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: “The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot...

Daughter Of Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church Founder, In Court Today by Susan @ 8:04 pm. Filed under ACLU, 1st Amendment, Child Exploitation, News, Fallen Heros Recently we saw Albert Snyder, father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, take the Westboro Baptist Church, which is no more than a cult disguising itself as a church, to court for disrupting the funeral of his hero Marine son with protests. Then we showed you that the father won his lawsuit and was awarded $11 million dollars in damages. You hear Phelps reaction to that news here and you can see all of Stop...

A popular San Francisco news anchor inexplicably made a joke on a Wednesday evening newscast suggesting NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. “should marry his stepmother.” First, some background: Preceding the quip by KPIX news anchor Dana King was a flawed report from sports anchor Dennis O’Donnell about the unveiling of the stock car Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be racing with his new team next season. Dale Jr., son of the late NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr., is in his final season with Dale Earnhardt Inc., the racing team his father founded and left to Dale Jr.’s stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt. Dale...

The Radical Evil Of The Palestinian Arab PopulationBy Ben ShapiroWednesday, June 20, 2007The battle over the Palestinian Arab territory in the Gaza Strip is a battle between extremists and more radical extremists. Last week, the extremists, led by Holocaust denier and Fatah strongman Mahmoud Abbas, were ousted in a bloody coup by the radical extremists, Islamist terrorist group Hamas. Yet, instead of allowing Fatah and Hamas to slug it out, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed newly appointed Abbas frontman Prime Minister Salam Fayyad that America would resume aid to the Palestinian Authority. "I told the prime minister that we...

German brother and sister are challenging the law against incest so that they can continue their relationship free from the threat of imprisonment. Patrick Stübing, an unemployed locksmith, and his sister Susan have had four children together since starting a sexual relationship in 2000. Three of the children are in foster care, and two have unspecified disabilities. The couple, who live near Leipzig, grew up separately and only met many years later. Their supporters say they will fight until incest is no longer regarded as a criminal offence, arguing that the law is out of date. They say it harks...

A breeder in Sakaide city on Shikoku, Japan, took this photo of one of his little dogs, which are in demand and expensive. ( Hidekazu Kawanabe ) Genetic defects rise with fad-driven inbreeding of dogs in Japan By Martin Fackler Wednesday, December 27, 2006 TOKYO Care for a Chihuahua with a blue hue? How about a teacup poodle so tiny it will fit into a purse — the canine equivalent of a bonsai? The Japanese sure do. Rare and unique dogs are highly prized here and can set buyers back more than ¥1 million, or about $8,400. But the...

On another thread the subject of neoptism of hollywoodies came up, and it seemed that it might be interesting to pool knowledge about who in Hollywood broke into the tight movie union because of their connections. Who's Whose Kid in Hollywood Nicholas Cage is Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. Anyone who saw him in Peggy Sue Got Married KNOWS he only got hired because of his uncle. He got to learn by being an apprentice in the trenches--that's a gift. Kate Hudson is Goldie Hawn's daughter.Gwennie Paltrow is the daughter of Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner.

Available data suggest that genetic and congenital disorders are more common in Arab countries than in industrialised countries; recessively inherited disorders account for a substantial proportion of physical and mental handicap. Several factors may contribute to the high prevalence of genetically determined disorders: High consanguinity rates 25-60% of all marriages are consanguineous, and the rate of first cousin marriages is high. In addition, isolated subpopulations with a high level of inbreeding exist. Furthermore, in many parts of the Arab world the society is still tribal. This has made the epidemiology of genetic disorders complicated, as many families and tribal groups...

No story related to human evolution has drawn as much press—and as much imagination—in recent times as the account of family members in Turkey (of Kurdish descent) who walk hunched over, using their hands as well as feet to ambulate. In fact, over a one-week period, more AiG supporters alerted us to this news item than any other we have ever received—by far. Initially some scientists thought this bizarre story might have been a hoax, but after studying this family for some time, a TV documentary crew and researchers have concluded that it is not (e.g., the siblings, they discovered,...

Prince Charles, addressing a small business group in London, called climate change a bigger danger than terrorism. The heir to the British throne urged business to take advantage of technology to become more energy efficient. He was speaking at a meeting of the Confederation of British Industry, The Scotsman reported. The prince quoted John Coomber, a director of an organization that assesses risk who called global warming the number one risk in the world, ahead of terrorism and demographic change. 'I think he has got a point,' Prince Charles said.

It is estimated that at least 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins and the tradition is also common among some other South Asian communities and in some Middle Eastern countries. But there is a problem: marrying someone who is themselves a close family member carries a risk for children - a risk that lies within the code of life; within our genes. Communities that practice cousin marriage experience higher levels of some very rare but very serious illnesses - illnesses known as recessive genetic disorders. Open debate Now, one Labour MP is calling for an end to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A man who is fighting to get the words "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance was back in federal court Wednesday, making some surprising comments about the case. Although the hearing was a procedural matter with no key rulings, Michael Newdow said that if he is successful in having the words removed from the pledge at the U.S. Supreme Court level, it still wouldn't be enough. Newdow believes that it is time to get rid of the old Pledge of Allegiance altogether. He said that it's impractical to just change the pledge because children will...

The lead article in the August issue of the Israel Medical Association Journal reports success in lowering infant mortality rates among Arabs in the Western Galilee. These rates being generally twice as high among Israeli Arabs as among Israeli Jews, by 2002 an Israeli health program launched in the late 1980s had lowered the rate among Western Galilee Arabs to about 1.5 that of the Jews in the area. The program found three main factors causing the high rates among the Arabs: infections, home births, and diseases resulting from inbreeding. About 40 percent of Muslim and Druze women and 70...

<p>Thank you four allowing me to join your esteamed sight. i feel i am on the cutting edge of moderate republican progressive! i have been a life long republican. you have to believe me.</p>

Prohibitions on cousin marriage mostly a U.S. phenomenon DAN NEPHIN Associated Press PITTSBURGH - It started out as the kind of childhood crush that often becomes family lore shared at reunions years later. Eventually though, first cousins Donald W. Andrews Sr. and Eleanore Amrhein realized they had a deeper love and wanted to marry. But they couldn't do it in their home state of Pennsylvania, or 23 other states that prohibit first cousins from marrying. Instead, they tied the knot last month in Maryland, and their nuptials highlighted a relationship that often draws scorn but advocates say is just misunderstood...

The people of Massachusetts enjoy a beautiful landscape rich in history, some of our nation’s most prominent universities, and the fourth highest per capita income in the country. Yet they can’t come up with better representatives than John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy. How is this possible? One, the nation’s most prominent coward, the other called traitor by his band of brothers, our country's two most socialist senators, the two biggest national embarrassments of modern times, and both from Massachusetts. I’m afraid this does not look good for the people who keep electing them… I suspect that Senator Kennedy has garnered...

After months of research into Kerry's ancestry, Burke's Peerage, experts on British aristocracy, reported Monday that the Vietnam war veteran is related to all the royal houses of Europe and can claim kinship with Czar Ivan "The Terrible," a previous Emperor of Byzantium and the Shahs of Persia. Burke's director Harold Brooks-Baker said Kerry had his mother, Rosemary Forbes, to thank for most of his royal connections. "Every maternal blood line of Kerry makes him more royal than any previous American president," Brooks-Baker said.

Fears by the Prince of Wales that armies of microscopic robots could turn the face of the planet into an uninhabitable wasteland have prompted the nation's top scientists and engineers to launch an inquiry. Having attacked GM foods in the past, Prince Charles has more recently turned his attention to nanotechnology, the ability to manipulate matter at scales of billionths of a metre. Concerned by claims by environmentalists that swarms of rogue "nanomachines" could one day reduce all in their path to "grey goo", the prince has asked the Royal Society to help him to weigh up the risks. Yesterday,...

by So Bobby Kennedy Jr. is going to become a celebrity magazine writer, and his first assignment is a 14,000-word defense of his cousin, tubby alcoholic layabout and now convicted murderer Michael Skakel. Can't wait to read it. After all, Bobby's a very distinguished lawyer. He passed the bar exam on his third try - that's seven fewer times than it took the Kennedy family's handpicked candidate for Barnstable County district attorney last week. Now Bobby sues pig farms, he endorses Hillary, he's against the Navy shelling of Vieques, not to mention he's a regular on the Kennedy-trial circuit, appearing...

Budget crisis? What state budget crisis? Now the commonwealth spends $300,000 on an advertising firm that comes up with a state slogan which isn't half as good as any of the joke slogans that we all came up with two months ago, and on top of that, it's half-plagiarized from an old slogan. The new slogan: ``Massachusetts . . . Make It Yours.'' The old slogan: ``Make It in Massachusetts.'' I'm telling you, Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose got into trouble for much less obvious lifting of other people's work than that. When the ``Make It Yours''...