And he's causing a helluva fuss. Ever since he wrote It's the Demography, Stupid! last year, and then expanded it into America Alone, it feels as if he has singled me out to personally save civilization by breeding. And as if that's not scary enough, my biological clock now ticks in his unusual pseudo-British voice.

I am bombarded daily by walking watermelons in the office, oversized prams blocking the sidewalk on my way to Saturday brunch, this week's Macleans with the cover screaming "Hey Lady! What will it take to make you breed?" and myriad other not-so-subtle hints.

It's normal to feel persecuted by my own ovaries. I'm thirty years old, healthy, moderately content with life (a massive improvement over how I felt in my twenties!), and female. My brain knows what it wants out of life, but my basest physiology is very much in tune with biology and survival of the species. How in tune? The Steyn-Clock only starts ticking in the presence of an Alpha Male. I am happily married to the world's most wonderful Beta Male, but Mother Nature and Mark Steyn have advised me that it's my ovarian destiny to breed super-children with an Alpha Male. And there's no fooling Mother and Mark.

It's usually easy to ignore. After all, I live in Toronto. Not a lot of Alpha Males here. So Im able to go about my business, scowling at the Yummie Mummies taking up valuable rush hour space on the subway or at the endless streams of welfare baby-mommas taking up valuable oxygen that Al Gore says we'll be out of soon. Mr. Right - beloved Beta Male - and I can joyfully and selfishly coexist, with the cats and the dog for unconditional love and (I shamefully admit) the occasional miniature designer outfit. We would be a deplorable parental duo. Both of us far too focused on our own issues and interests. Both of us lazy. Mr. Right is an excellent parent to me, wrangling the demons of my childhood that I carry with me. He's warm, caring, infinitely patient... but would forget a baby in the bathtub or even the grocery store. I have all the necessary instincts - right down to waking in the middle of the night if I hear one of the kitties being sick - but I would be one of those women you read about and shake your head, the one who drives her minivan full of kids into a lake.

But put me in the vicinity of an Alpha Male, and my ovaries stand up and salute! They sing the Star Spangled Banner. Five minutes with an Alpha, and I'm picking out names. Hawaii was a nightmare for a child-phobe like me - surrounded by the very best America has to offer in the form of Army, Navy, Marines and yes, even the Air Force. Not to say that every one of them is an Alpha - far from it. But the available percentage was much, much higher than under normal circumstances. So there I was, in Paradise, surrounded by Alphas, with Mark Steyn screaming from my nether regions. When it comes to my biological makeup, I'm no better than a cat. Gross.

The biggest problem is that Mark hasn't quite figured out that we're home now. We've been home nearly a month. But still all I hear is tick-tick-demography,stupid-tick....

Labels: Alpha Males, Biology, Demography, Mark Steyn, Science, Sex

Obviously this explains the prevalence of gay marriage, metrosexuals, and Colin & Justin.

Back in the summer of 2001, a team of Canadian and U.S. researchers spiked a lake in Northwestern Ontario with traces of synthetic estrogen used in human birth control pills. They then repeated the unusual treatment for the next two years and sat back and watched what happened to minnows living in the lake.

The results were nothing short of frightening. Exposing fish to tiny doses of the active ingredient in the pill, amounts little more than a whiff of estrogen, started turning male fish into females. Instead of sperm, they started developing eggs. Instead of looking like males, they became indistinguishable from females. Within a year of exposure, the minnow population began to crash. Within a few years, the fish, which at one time teemed in the lake, had practically vanished.

Ok, but what do these fish have to do with Colin & Justin, you ask? Fair question. It seems that the test samples of estrogen were meant to mimic the type and quantity of estrogen that makes it through waste water purification. Which means I - on the Pill - take a piss. It gets cleansed and purified, and your son drinks it. Next thing you know he's talking about his feelings, writing poetry, and making moon-eyes at the boy next door.

It's not known what effect, if any, human exposure to estrogen in drinking water might have, although Dr. Kidd said it is an area that should be a research priority. Reproductive problems in human males, such as declining sperm counts and testicular cancer, have been rising in recent decades, and the causes are not known.

"When we see these kinds of responses in fish, it raises a red flag for what these compounds are doing to humans," she said.

Dear God, what have we done? We take the Pill to avoid having children, and it emasculates our men to virtually ensure that we'll never have children. Obviously I can't cast the first stone here, but I definitely think it's worth further study.

Labels: Apocalypso, Science, Sex

I'm not the mothering kind, but should I ever breed, there is no doubt I would stay home to raise my kids. And here is yet another good reason why.

Young babies will be assessed on their "crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing" under a new national curriculum for under-fives published today.

Staff in every nursery in England will monitor children from birth on their progress towards a set of 69 Government "early learning goals". These goals cover the skill levels expected of five-year-olds in reading, writing and rudimentary maths.

Parents' groups attacked the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which will be a legal requirement for all childminders and children's centres from September 2008.

Margaret Morrissey, from the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: "I think it's really sad that we have reached the point now where instead of reducing children's stress we have increased it.

"Will nurseries be worrying more about children reaching these targets than caring for our children?

"It worries me that we are expecting children to reach these targets when they have not even had their first birthday."

Horrific. Kids of the latter generations have already missed out on the real education and love the receive by having a mother at home (or in my case, a Nana). Now those mothers, already feeling guilty for abandoning their kids to daycare, will be made to feel worse if the babies don't squeal at the right pitch. Who comes up with this junk-science?

As one of the commenters of the story put it

Moral: don't put your baby in a nursery; look after it yourself. If you can't do that, it probably means you shouldn't have had the poor mite in the first place.

Labels: Europe, Oddities, Science

No, really.

A MUSLIM doctors' leader has provoked an outcry by urging British Muslims not to vaccinate their children against diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella because it is "un-Islamic".

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them "haram", or unlawful for Muslims to take.
Islam permits only the consumption of halal products, where the animal has had its throat cut and bled to death while God's name is invoked.

Islam also forbids the eating of any pig meat, which Katme says is another reason why vaccines should be avoided, as some contain or have been made using pork-based gelatine.

I was sitting in my doctor's office a couple of months back, and I noticed a poster on her wall about child vaccinations. It said that by law, all kids had to be vaccinted before they would be allowed in Ontario public schools. Makes sense to me. What's the point in having my kid vaccinated if the kid he or she sits next to is carrying polio or mumps? My kid is still going to end up getting sick. Anyhow, at the bottom of this poster was a note saying that if you did not wish to have your child vaccinated for personal or religious reasons (which pretty much covers laziness, which would be a personal reason), then you had to call the Ministry of Health for an exception. What good does that do? My little Bobby has to sit next to a filthy and diseased Mohammed or Fatima, just because their parents don't believe in preventing polio??

There is already evidence of lower than average vaccination rates in Muslim areas, reducing the prospect of the "herd immunity" needed to curb infectious diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella.
Katme's appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers to refuse vaccines from the West.

In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.

Katme said he was bringing the message to Britain after analysing the products used for the manufacture of the vaccines.

Right. Health and science is haram to people living in the seventh century. Whatever. Islam is a cult that embraces death, so if they don't want to protect their kids from possible fatal diseases, that's their choice. But that means I have to be doubly cautious where my own (hypothetical) children are concerned. I guess I can't let them go to public school with these little disease-bags, right? And what about just going to a movie, or riding a crowded subway? I'm not going to keep my (hypothetical) Mary or Scotty locked up because Ahmed has TB. I say, lock up Ahmed!

The Muslims have found one more way to put our lives at risk. And this time they're going after our kids. Quarantine 'em. Don't let them out in society until they're clean enough not to pose a biological risk to our children. And if they want to emigrate here, instate an Ellis Island-style vaccination and quarantine system, or just don't let them in.

You are perfectly welcome to your religious views, but not at the sake of the health of others.

(as an aside, if while they are all in quarantine, the incidences of terror-related acts happen to decline markedly, remember that it's probably just a coincidence....)

Labels: Health, Islam, Religion, Science

That's always been my personal philosophy. And while the latter has landed me more than once in the emergency roon, it's reassuring to hear that the former may actually save my life.

Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells.

They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells' energy-generating boiler rooms.

The research raises the possibility that other cancer drugs could be developed to target mitochondria.

And for all those years, people laughed at me for drinking hot sauce right out of the bottle and baking chili chocolate chip cookies. Ha! I may have no esophaegus or stomach lining left, but I may also be the first in my family to live to retirement!

Labels: Food, Oddities, Science