The Birds and the Bees: How homosexuality, widespread in the animal kingdom, may have evolved

What is taught in a country's schools reveals much about the national psyche. The Norwegian curriculum requires that all 14-year-olds learn about homosexuality. Assisting with this education, the National History Museum at the University of Oslo has just opened an exhibition of gay animals.

“Against Nature?” does not tell zoologists anything new. Homosexuality has been recorded in some 1,500 species so far, and been well documented in about a third of these cases; it has been known since the time of Aristotle, who thought he witnessed two male hyenas having sex with one another. But the exhibition's purpose is not to educate zoologists. It is to persuade the public that, as there are gay whales and worms, gay humans do not disturb the natural order.

Aside from illustrating homosexuality among an extraordinary variety of creatures, the exhibition shows how sexual stimulation can vary when, at first blush, the mechanical details of how this might work are not obvious to people attempting to draw analogies from their own anatomies. Male Amazonian river dolphins, for example, penetrate the blowholes of other males; female bottlenose dolphins use their snouts as dildos on other females.

Why this behaviour might be favoured by natural selection, though, is a difficult question to answer. In an attempt to do so, the exhibition picks on gay flamingos. Two males raising a chick after one of them had a one-night stand (of sorts) with a female are able to hold a larger territory than male-female partnerships. This suggests a chick with two dads could get more food and therefore have a better chance of survival. But explanations are harder when gay animals (such as some humans and, apparently, some killer whales) never try to mate with the opposite sex.

Theoretically, there are several possible ways homosexuality could have evolved. One is that homosexuals assist in the upbringing of their relatives so much that they pass on more of their genes this way than by having children themselves. Another suggestion assumes the genes that confer homosexuality in males are different from those that confer it in females. For the theory to work, these genes would have to confer some extra reproductive advantage to their straight carriers. This way, genes that increase the chances of one sex surviving and reproducing might not be discarded through the generations even though they inhibit making babies when they occur in the opposite sex. But testing these theories is hard, so nobody knows if they are true.

Taking lessons on sexuality from the birds and the bees itself requires first accepting something not taught ubiquitously outside Norway—that evolution occurs by natural selection.

The Birds and the Bees: How homosexuality, widespread in the animal kingdom, may have evolved

What is taught in a country's schools reveals much about the national psyche. The Norwegian curriculum requires that all 14-year-olds learn about homosexuality. Assisting with this education, the National History Museum at the University of Oslo has just opened an exhibition of gay animals.

“Against Nature?” does not tell zoologists anything new. Homosexuality has been recorded in some 1,500 species so far, and been well documented in about a third of these cases; it has been known since the time of Aristotle, who thought he witnessed two male hyenas having sex with one another. But the exhibition's purpose is not to educate zoologists. It is to persuade the public that, as there are gay whales and worms, gay humans do not disturb the natural order.

Aside from illustrating homosexuality among an extraordinary variety of creatures, the exhibition shows how sexual stimulation can vary when, at first blush, the mechanical details of how this might work are not obvious to people attempting to draw analogies from their own anatomies. Male Amazonian river dolphins, for example, penetrate the blowholes of other males; female bottlenose dolphins use their snouts as dildos on other females.

Why this behaviour might be favoured by natural selection, though, is a difficult question to answer. In an attempt to do so, the exhibition picks on gay flamingos. Two males raising a chick after one of them had a one-night stand (of sorts) with a female are able to hold a larger territory than male-female partnerships. This suggests a chick with two dads could get more food and therefore have a better chance of survival. But explanations are harder when gay animals (such as some humans and, apparently, some killer whales) never try to mate with the opposite sex.

Theoretically, there are several possible ways homosexuality could have evolved. One is that homosexuals assist in the upbringing of their relatives so much that they pass on more of their genes this way than by having children themselves. Another suggestion assumes the genes that confer homosexuality in males are different from those that confer it in females. For the theory to work, these genes would have to confer some extra reproductive advantage to their straight carriers. This way, genes that increase the chances of one sex surviving and reproducing might not be discarded through the generations even though they inhibit making babies when they occur in the opposite sex. But testing these theories is hard, so nobody knows if they are true.

Taking lessons on sexuality from the birds and the bees itself requires first accepting something not taught ubiquitously outside Norway—that evolution occurs by natural selection.

Condi speaks out.

So, today Condi Rice came out telling Bill Clinton that he better check himself before he wrecks himself when he disses Fearless Leader's attempts to (not) capture Bin Laden. Here's the story from MSNBC.com . Condi comes out saying that, "The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false...". But isn't that just what happened when Fearless Leader didn't read the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled Bin Laden Determined To Attack U.S.? Isn't that also what happened when Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism cheif that had work for the past three presidents before Fearless Leader said to the 9/11 commision? Isn't that what happened when this administration did nothing after it was found out that Bin Laden was behind the attack of the U.S.S. Cole?

So, it's five years after the 9/11 attacks, and again I ask just where are we at? We had the world's support to go after Bin Laden, and we did that with Afghanistan. Along the way we took out a government that was using religious fanaiticism to oppress people. And that was a good thing, but we wasted it all on Fearless Leader's quest to be better than his dad.

But, we can all throw around blame, but the only people we can really blame is ourselves. As a nation, we are very apathetic of not only the plight of people from other places in the world, but we are also very apathetic of our own political process. If you aren't registered to vote, then do so. Because, if didn't vote in the last election, then you have no right to complain about anything. It is as much your fault that we have a former coke head, frat boy as a President as it is for the idiots who thought that by keeping him in office would keep us safer.

This Just In...

Black Flag still kicks ass.



If you have never listened to them, then I suggest that you pick up a copy of Damaged (contains hits like Rise Above, Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, and TV Party) and My War (not only contains their best song, My War, but also the one record that influence the creation of many early Seattle Grunge bands).

Here's a pretty good fan site dedicated to the band.

Why Clinton still kicks ass....

If you haven't been watching the news this weekend, then you missed a great interview between Bill Clinton (the last elected President of the United States) and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace where Clinton came out in a fury against the accusations that his administration didn't do enough to capture Bin Laden before he left office. Here is the interview:



Great stuff, huh?

Anyway, there is some truth to this, according to NBC News (Must open link in Internet Explorer), who reported that Clinton came within hours of killing Bin Laden back in 1998 when he ordered the cruise missile strikes on Al Qaida. Of course, as the former president said in the interview, he was critized by many on the right about using the strikes as a diversion to the Lewinksy scandal, but just what has the new administration done? Like I said in the last post, the U.S. Army had Bin Laden trapt but let him go, and as President Clinton said in the interview that this administration sees Afghanistan only as 1/7th of the importance in the War on Terror as Iraq. Even the current leader of Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai, has came out to say that the money used for Iraq could have been used to stabilize his country from the resurgence of the Taliban (you know, they guys that we kicked out of power and thought to have destroyed).

So, this interview was aired on Sunday morning and now people are coming out saying that Clinton is blaming others for his failure to capture Bin Laden. In fact, if you search for this video on YouTube, you get most of the links saying as much. But, even in the interview Clinton says that he didn't do enough since he didn't get Bin Laden, but he did more than what the Bush administration has done. Hell, Fearless Leader and Dead-Eye Dick didn't have any meetings concerning Bin Laden or Al Qaida in the eight months between the time that they stole the election and 9/11. In that time, they were too worried about keeping people from getting better from stem cell research that they couldn't read the CIA briefings titled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.

So, we should all thank President Clinton for all the hard work that he did while he was in office to try to capture Bin Laden, because we all know that no one has started a war over lying about a blow job.

--Aptiva Dave

Five years gone

So, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 has now come and passed, with Fearless Leader coming on the television to tell us all that he still believes the lie that Iraq was part of the attack on that terrible day. Now, I'm not a Saddam fan (the guy was a real head case), but what has our nation done to bring to justice the madman who was in charge of the people who attacked us? Nothing much really. Bin Laden is still out there, breathing, eating, and laughing while the people who lost loved ones that day are still grieving. In fact, the U.S. intelligence group that has been assigned to track down Osama hasn't had any real leads in quite some time.

Of course, that wasn't what we heard from Fearless Leader and his cronies five years ago, when he stood with a group of rescuers at Ground Zero and proclaimed that the people who attacked us would hear from us pretty soon. Well, we made a great show of force and took out those nut jobs in the Taliban, who were hiding bin Laden. Our forces even had Osama trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan, but he got away because it took two months for our Special Forces to show up in that region. Do you know what happened because of those two months? Ask the people of Madrid or the people of London. Ask the people of Iraq who now have to worry about al-Qaida in their streets.

In his speech tonight, Fearless Leader again called the Iraq War part of the War on Terrorism, but were we all thinking that Iraq was a part of this tragedy five years ago? I remember, in all of the shock of what was going on, that our enemy was clear now, that it was a tall, Arab man with along beard and a kidney problem that did this to us. I sure as hell knew it was some modern day Napoleon in an isolated country that was despised by its neighbors. I also knew that there was no way that a secular Muslim like Saddam Hussein would have any thing to do with a radical fundamentalist like Osama bin Laden, and apparently the U.S. Senate didn't find anything connecting the two.

So, what do we need to do in the next five years so that we can bring some sense of closure and justice to this tragic event? Well, if you haven't, then you need to register to vote. And when you do vote, vote for people who will commit our forces to find bin Laden and bring him to justice. Vote for people who will get us out of Iraq and who will stand up to the right-wing who have turned this country on it's head. Also, and this goes hand in hand with the voting, watch the news or read the paper. Keep up with what's going on around you so that you aren't fooled by the politicians that represent our country to the rest of the world. This country needs a change and it is now time for our generation to take charge and shape this country back into something that makes us all proud to be Americans.

On a side note, the first thing I read after the attacks was the back of Jawbreaker's record Bivoac. My eyes stopped on the title of the seventh song, which is called p.s. New York Is Burning.

Yarghhhhh!

I've been neglecting my duties.
But now I'm here to redeem myself.

These violent delights have violent ends
And in triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI

And I suggest that you all watch American Beauty.

--Katlyn

Display it with pride!

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