Notes: Saturday, July 31 to Tuesday, August 3, 2010

"Probe into 54 baby deaths rejected by Victorian Parliament"

http://members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/thread/1280475251.html

Mr. Warner on the problems with Anglicanorum coetibus

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32847

Counterpoint to "Neuroscience suggests heterosexual monogamy is best"

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/were-just-swingers-after-all-20100730-10zsn.html?skin=text-only

I link to the article in question because it's wise to be aware of the arguments which opponents of the natural law and its dictates in these matters will raise, though the article is rather weak and unbalanced--the author cites double the number of pro-polyamory/polyamory-sympathetic sources relative to anti-polyamory sources, and he fails to ask the obvious question of how even in the (false) Darwinian account of man's origins it can be the case that nature would select for behaviour which, by fuelling 'sexually-transmissible infections' (as I understand the correct term now is), is at least in that way destructive of the species. One doesn't have to be an expert for that problem to occur to him, and the journalist's apparent failure to think of it is all the more inexcusable given this extract from his article:

Rather than jealousy (which in severe cases, can be treated, Ford says, "like a phobia"), polyamorous people are said to experience something they call "compersion", which means, in simple terms, to take pleasure in your partner's pleasure. Such an arrangement is reasonably common among gay male couples, who, as Ryan writes, recognise that "additional relationships need not be taken as indictments of anyone".

Well you know what else is 'reasonably common among gay male couples'? Genital warts. Syphilis. H.I.V./A.I.D.S. (see ACON's website for more). For a more critical response (though one with which I still don't fully agree, because of its Darwinist perpective) see the letter entitled "Multiple partners may be natural, but so is arsenic" in the letters section of today's Herald.

"There's no harm done being a working mum"

"MUMS can return to work within a year of giving birth without harming their babies' development, a landmark report shows."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/theres-no-harm-done-being-a-working-mum/story-e6frf7l6-1225899728657

I want to keep that article for future reference, though as you might expect I dispute the findings (well, except for things like "[w]orking mums have higher income, ... than their stay-at-home counterparts"--they needed a thousand-child study to tell them that mothers earning money earn more money than mothers not earning money?!).

Findings of a study on I.V.F.-conceived children's health risk factors

From the Pulse column in the Health section of last Saturday's edition of The Weekend Australian's Weekend Professional supplement:

Bad week for . . . [sic]

CHILDREN conceived by IVF: Swedish research indicates they have an increased risk of cancer. The study followed 26,692 children born after IVF during 1982-2005. These children had 1.42 times the risk of developing cancer than children not conceived after IVF. That risk equated to 53 cases, compared with an expected figure of 38. High birth weight and premature delivery were among other risk factors found by the study, online in the journal Pediatrics.

Pediatrics

2010;doi:10.1542/peds.2009-3225

(Kallen B, et al)
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/good-week-for-mothers-pregnancy/story-e6frg8y6-1225898707091]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
3.VIII.2010