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Scottish government to withhold results of homosexual adoption study Cardinal Keith O'Brien Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Mar 13, 2009 / 01:49 am (CNA).- The Scottish Government is drawing criticism for saying that the results of an official investigation into the effects of homosexual adoption in Scotland will not be made public. The announcement comes soon after Cardinal Keith O’Brien urged the government to promote adoption rather than permit same-sex couples to foster children.In 2006 the Scottish Government passed laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt. The government is now working to permit same-sex couples to become foster parents.Scottish Ministers began an investigation...

"Now they say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was too pretty!!It was okay for them to talk about what a hunk Obama was, with his abs and swimsuit in Hawaii. Being good looking helped him. It was a good thing...He was smart AND good looking! Amazing...And what about the younger and more fit Billy Bob Clinton? Remember all the stories about how women thought he was so good looking? We were told he had strong support from women voters because he was handsome...So, for guys it is okay to be good looking and talk about it." Now we're supposed to believe...

Report co-author Rachel Benson Gold called the family planning program "smart government at its best," asserting that every dollar spent on it saves taxpayers $4 in costs associated with unintended births to mothers eligible for Medicaid-funded natal care.

WASHINGTON – A classified Pentagon report urges President Barack Obama to shift U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, de-emphasizing democracy-building and concentrating more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of Pakistani military forces. -- A senior defense official said Tuesday that it will likely take several weeks before the Obama administration rolls out its long-term strategy for Afghanistan.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008) — Non-white medical students are more likely to embrace orthodox medicine and reject therapies traditionally associated with their cultures. That is one finding from an international study that measures the attitudes of medical students toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). While seemingly counter-intuitive, white students view CAM more favorably than their non-white counterparts, the study authors say.CAM is the common, collective term that describes non-orthodox therapies considered not intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society or culture.Despite the growing popularity of CAM, many medical schools do not include CAM teachings within basic...

Scientists angry after feds ax forest studyThe government wanted to see how forests responded to carbon dioxide. By Jeff Barnard The Associated Press Published on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 DURHAM — For more than a decade, the federal government has spent millions of dollars pumping elevated levels of carbon dioxide into small groups of trees to test how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years. Some scientists believe they are on the cusp of receiving key results from the time-consuming experiments. The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists...

The author of the study, who writes a whole hell of a lot better than Michelle Obama (just don't want you to forget who our 1st Lady would be if Barry wins), seems to suggest a racist element among the increased white turnout. She also notes, in passing, that black candidates are among the most liberal in the country, which I think is largely the reason for the increased white turnout. More . . .

Researchers from three universities worked on the project and have said Obama has produced vague proposals compared to other candidates. U.S. and Canadian researchers say voters respond to Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama's abstract notions of hope, change and judgment. Hakkyun Kim of Concordia University, Akshay Rao of the University of Minnesota and Angela Lee of Northwestern University said that while Obama was providing abstract messages, rivals Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and other candidates presented detailed, concrete proposals on many topics, which did not resonate as well. The researchers said Obama's reliance on lofty rhetoric succeeded thus far, because...

Unregulated gun shows decrease homicide rates, according to results of a study announced Wednesday by the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The study, which compares gun shows that are heavily regulated to prevent private sales of firearms without government permission in California, with gun shows in Texas, where private sellers are freely able to transfer firearms. In heavily regulated California, no effect on homicides or suicides was found, except that about four suicides per year changed the method of suicide to firearms from something else. In Texas, the study found that the availability of gun...

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia is in the grip of a "man drought" where women increasingly outnumber men and a good bachelor is hard to find, according to new research from a leading demographer. From its founding as a British penal colony more than 200 years ago, Australia has traditionally suffered from a gender imbalance where men were more likely to be more numerous than the fairer sex Down Under. But what was once an oversupply of testosterone began to move in the other direction in the 1990s, and single women in their thirties are beginning to wonder where all the...

A noted child and family psychologist says spanking a child can be an effective form of discipline, despite a recent study that states otherwise. A new report titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools" shows that more than 200,000 children received corporal punishment in U.S. schools. Texas accounted for the majority of the cases, although 21 U.S. states allow the use of corporal punishment. The study was conducted by Humans Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. According to a Reuters article on the study, "liberal groups regard corporal punishment as a barbaric relic...

GOD'S REMEMBRANCE OF "BABYLON THE GREAT." Revelation 16:19; 18:5. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah's prophecy there occurs a remarkable prediction of which no account is taken in the various handbooks that have lately been issued, but which has a most important bearing upon dispensational changes that now seem to be pending. The verses are the 15th and 16th: "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel unto me; Take the cup of the wine of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and reel...

Alarming numbers of children feel safer in the street when carrying knives or guns, Government inspectors warned today. A top-level report found that many children were still "very worried" about being bullied and were afraid of being on their own in public areas.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Another study suggests Planned Parenthood is at fault in the deaths of women in the United States from the abortion drug RU 486. The abortion business had been telling women to use the drug in a different way than the FDA guidelines suggested and the study shows it contributed to the deaths. So far, eight women have died from the use of the abortion drug, including a rash of women going to Planned Parenthood abortion centers in California. Planned Parenthood had been telling women to use the abortion drug vaginally, even though the FDA indicated oral...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Unlucky for some? Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday. A study published on Thursday by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays. "I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th," CVS statistician Alex...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Beware: Puttering around on golf carts can be hazardous to your health. Those little vehicles that lurch and buzz past fairways and greens — and increasingly down suburban streets — might be a cost-saving alternative to gas-guzzling SUVs and cars. But a pair of studies released this week suggests they do have their risks. The research found that over a four-year period, nearly 50,000 people were hurt in accidents involving golf carts. One of the studies, by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said about 1,000 Americans are hurt on golf carts every month. Males aged 10...

GENEVA (AFP) - It doesn't pay to be smart and ignorance really is bliss if you want a long life -- at least if you're a fly, according to new research by a Swiss university. Scientists Tadeusz Kawecki and Joep Burger at the University of Lausanne said Wednesday they had discovered a "negative correlation between an improvement in a fly's mental capacity and its longevity". As part of their research project, the results of which are published in the journal Evolution, they divided into two a group of flies from the Basel region of northwestern Switzerland. One half was left...

ISG moves from consensus to conflictBy DANIEL LIBIT 4/22/08 4:32 AM EST In December 2006, in an effort to build a national consensus on a “new way forward in Iraq,” the Iraq Study Group painted itself as a portrait of bipartisan chumminess, with all political hackery checked at the door. Sixteen months later, seven of the 10 ISG members are backing presidential candidates with radically different views about how to proceed in Iraq. Republicans James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Ed Meese are supporting Sen. John McCain, who argues that the United States should be sending more troops to Iraq. Democrats...

NEW YORK - Newspaper readers agree with editors on the basics of what makes good journalism, but they are more apt to want looser rules for online conversations, a new study on news credibility has found. Newspapers highly discourage anonymous remarks, for instance, and editors are more likely than readers to want that principle applied to reader comments online, according to the Online Journalism Credibility Study released Tuesday by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. Some 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities...

Increased Knowledge About Global Warming Leads To Apathy, Study Shows ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) — The more you know the less you care -- at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis. "More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming," states the article, titled "Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming...