Graeme

Hopefully the silence means he's contacted someone and something is happening.

An intriguing start. I'm interesting in where it goes next

I found this at the SFGate.com website and just had to share it. The comment at the end of the article are definitely worth reading, too. Gay bull who fails to stud is saved from slaughter

One of the genes identified was on the X chromosome. The other one wasn't. I have to admit that I had similar thoughts, though, because this ties in with another study which indicated that male homosexuality was linked to female fertility. The theory was that the gene that produces homosexuality in males also increases the fertility in women, so they have more children. When viewed as a totality, the gene is pro-survival because it means more off-spring, even allow for the fact that some of those off-spring may not have children themselves. After all, the limiting factor on population growth is the number of women, not the number of men.

I was pleased to see this in the article. It makes it clear that the genes are only one part of the equation. Previous twin studies involving identical twins (this one only used non-identical twins, both of which identified as gay) indicated that is one twin was gay, the other twin was also likely to be gay, but it wasn't certain. That strongly implied that there is a genetic component to homosexuality, but it's not just the genes. Interestingly, the actual abstract of the paper doesn't mention twins, it merely says brothers. That means that they've only researched male homosexuality. It would be interesting to see if a similar study on lesbians came up with the same or different results.

Or, you can take the Douglas Adams approach and have a trilogy in four parts....

I've seen a few, though not that many. Less than Colin, actually.... 1. A Beautiful Thing 2. A League of Their Own 3. After Stonewall 4. Any Day Now 5. Boys Don't Cry 6. Brokeback Mountain 7. For The Bible Tells Me So 8. Fried Green Tomatoes 9. Hedwig And The Angry Inch 10. Ma Vie En Rose 11. Madonna: Truth or Dare 12. Making Love 13. Milk 14. Paris is Burning 15. Personal Best 16. Philadelphia 17. Rocky Horror Picture Show 18. Stage Beauty 19. Steel Magnolias 20. The Birdcage 21. The Broken Hearts Club 22. Velvet Goldmine

There's an interesting article about transgender children on the Australian ABC website: Family Court Chief Justice calls for rethink on how High Court handles cases involving transgender children The headline is in respect to the current status whereby a person under the age of eighteen needs to apply to the Family Court for the second stage of treatment involving gender-changing hormones. From the article:

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful warnings, because I have to go to the airport in 30 minutes and I can't afford to be late. I'll look at this when I get back and have plenty of spare time

Not quite. The change to the filibuster was very carefully constrained. Of course, there's now the precedence and the Republicans could take that and expand it to cover more things, but they would need to explicitly do that. As the rules currently stand, the Democrats can still filibuster a lot of things. Having said that, I agree with your last comment

Don't forget that the Democrats in the senate still have the ability to filibuster legislation, too. At least until the filibuster is reformed/changed/removed.

#7 is the reason I'm only on my first story sequel. I won't even start a novel nowadays unless I have a clear picture in my mind as to how it will end.

I love the characters and the situation. More importantly, I want to find out what happens next! You left the story at a really interesting point, which has been frustrating me for years...

LOL -- yes...I'm still waiting patiently for the next chapter in Life in a Northern Town

Too late....

Awhile ago I developed an interest in web comics. It's not a passion, but I've found a number of gay-themes web comics that I quite enjoy. Most don't fall into the story-telling genre, but there's a couple I've come across (both by the same author and graphic artist) that I think qualify. After all, the old saying is a picture paints a thousand words, so a web comic page is worth several thousand words..... Artifice written by Alex Woolfson, art by Winona Nelson An interesting story of an advanced, self-aware biological construct known as a synthetic or "artificial person". He had been sent on a mission, but things didn't go quite to plan, and the corporation that owns him wants to know why. The story is complete, with a wonderful but perfectly logical twist at the end. I really enjoyed it. A genuine story in a graphical format. The Young Protectors written by Alex Woolfson, pencils by Adam DeKraker, colors by Winona Nelson Secretly gay superhero falls for gay supervillain. What could possibly go wrong? This story is still ongoing, but I believe it's nearing completion. However, the author has indicated that it will go into December, so it may still have some legs in it....

Autism Screening Closer as 100 Genes Linked to Disorder are Identified Why am I posting this? Two reasons. The first is that I happen to have an interest in autism spectrum disorders. My major concern with screening is that the autism spectrum includes Aspergers, which happens to cover some of the brightest people on the planet. Autism is a neurological condition that includes having a brain that is wired differently to the norm. That different wiring also allows those with autism (and Aspergers in particular) to see things in a different way, and come up with some brilliant ideas. As Temple Grandin once said: The second reason is more applicable to our community (which does include members on the autism spectrum). Sexual orientation is also a brain function that is strongly suspected to be genetically based. The percentage of the population that is homosexual is higher than the percentage who are on the autism spectrum. If it takes up to 100 genes to determine autism, then that gives an indication of how complex the issue of genetic derivation can be. Those people who are looking for a 'gay gene' will almost certainly find that it's not a single gene but a set. How big the set will be I don't know, but taking a wild stab, I'd say somewhere in the order of 20. Who knows what other functions those genes also control? It's already been speculated that the genes for male homosexuality are linked to female fertility....

There are different types of bullying. Torn clothing, marks of a fight, and body language are indicators of only one type of bullying: physical. The example in the story was verbal bullying -- something much harder to see after the fact as there are no physical signs left lying around. Add in social bullying (in all it's myriad of forms) and believing teachers can spot these easily is wishful thinking. Physical bullying, yes. The other forms: much harder for someone else to spot. As a concrete example, one of my sons was bullied at school for most of one year. He didn't realise what was happening was bullying -- it was subtle, not obvious. It was only when my wife and I finally realised what was going on and then got the school involved that it all came out. Everyone recognised it as bullying...after the event. This was after it had been going on for months. I certainly don't blame the school for not spotting it -- my wife and I took months to realise what was going on.

Fantastic news!

I can see that sexuality may be fluid for some people, but I doubt it is fluid for most. Sexuality, to me, is about attraction, as Hoskins said early in this thread. I am generally sexually attracted to males, but I'm in a happy heterosexual relationship. I have no interest in other women, but I'm definitely attracted to other guys. Am I bi-sexual or gay? I explained it to my wife when I came out as being 80% attracted to guys and 20% attracted to women. To be honest, I fudged the figures to make her feel better (it was a scary time in our relationship). When dealing with a specific person, I can see that I could be attracted to anyone, but as a matter of practicality, it would be very difficult for me to be attracted to a woman because they've got a huge hurdle to get over in gathering some initial interest from me. Guys, on the other hand.... There are those who can find themselves attracted to some men and some women. Good for them! That's not me, but I don't expect everyone to be attracted to the same things as me.

I thought some people might find this amusing: Footy Scandal: The Game That Never Was It's very Australian, especially for that era...

Cornwall is part of England, but historically it was part of Wales. As such, there's some dispute as to whether it should be part of Wales as they go through the devolution in political structure that's currently occurring.

Sorry, but I've been away.... Technically, the sponsorship deal was between AFL Europe (the European affiliate of the AFL) and the Brunei airline. The AFL commission has already expressed grave concerns about this (in the middle of last week when the news came to light) and the expectation is that they'll tell the affiliate to drop the sponsorship. AFL reviews Brunei Sponsorship Deal over Anti-Gay Laws (from 10th September) The AFL (along with other major professional sporting codes in Australia) signed a commitment in April to stamp out homophobia in their sport in time for the Bingham Cup at the end of August. The Bingham cup is the World Cup of Gay Rugby and was held in Sydney this year in the last week of August (from memory). It makes absolutely no sense for them to make that commitment and then to allow this sponsorship. I fully expect that AFL Europe will drop Brunei Airlines as their official airline as a consequence. The online petition is nice, but probably unnecessary. Since my latest novel is set in the world of Australian Rules football, I've been paying a lot of attention to the sport and its attitudes towards homophobia. As an example, beside the Pink Magpies (the GLBT supporter group for the Collingwood Football Club), this year has also seen the formation of the Purple Bombers (a similar group for the Essendon Football Club). Other events have occurred that tell me that the AFL is sincere about wanting to act against homophobia, such as their support for the inaugural Pride Cup in May between a couple of district teams in the Yarra Valley and Mountain district. The AFL Players Association also had a significant contribution to the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) in 2013 -- on YouTube and on their website, and through the clubs (eg. the St.Kilda Football Club) There is a lot of support for gay rights and anti-homophobia at the top level of Australian Rules football. That's why I'm sure this sponsorship was a mistake that was not condoned or approved by the AFL in Australia.

While I agree with what you've said, my objection was to the statement that there's no technological reason, with the implication being that that is for throttling. There is a technological reason for throttling, and that's to ensure that there is sufficient bandwidth for all users. As I said, that argument doesn't really apply if there's fibre optic cables involved, but when using wireless or copper wire (the two main technologies being proposed for the national broadband network here in Australia!) there are known limits that need to be catered for. As I also said, I disagree with the idea of creating a two (or more) tier Internet, but that wasn't what I was trying to describe. I was trying to describe the technological reason behind why throttling is sometimes necessary. EDIT TO ADD: My sons have arrived home from school and have jumped onto their computers (in theory, so they can do their homework). My Internet access is now at a crawl. Both boys need to be throttled....

Sorry, but I have to disagree. There is a technological reason: bandwidth capacity. Unless you have fibre where the limits are high, there isn't the capacity to send the information over the Internet at high speed for everyone. There is a limit on how many meaningful signals can be transmitted down a single pipe (be that wireless or copper). Many places are hitting that limit. To expand the capacity means extra wires, changing to fibre (which has a significantly higher capacity than copper), or using extra wireless channels (of which there is a still a limited number). This proposal means that if people want a bigger share of the pipe, they pay more. Now, I can accept that this doesn't make sense for places where fibre optics are used for the communication, but for places that still use copper wire (most of Australia, for example), it makes good business sense. Having said that, I hate the idea, but I had to point out that the argument that this is purely a money-grabbing exercise is not true.