A Life Less Serious

Today's links, with the exception of one, are generally about nothing in particular, and linked only by their interest value. Sometimes it's a refreshing change to put yer headphones on and focus on things that are a little more important in life.

This great article is about a possible link between diet pills and homosexuality. Researchers, in a recent study, claim that mothers who took diet pills when they were pregnant, by a clear margin, had homosexual children. My first question: why are they taking diet pills when they're pregnant? At first I was a little suspicious and I thought this was a "tabloid" piece (which it may well be since I've never heard of this publication), but it is thought provoking. If they can prove that homosexuality is caused in the womb and not by cultural conditioning where does that leave the religious and ethical argument?

Here's the serious one: A court recently awarded the parents of a Jewish teen killed by Hamas in Israel, $156 million. I firmly believe that any foundation or individual that aids (monetary or otherwise) violence and terrorism should be held accountable; I'm just wondering, after reading this article whether the judge would have the same attitude towards Kurds and even Iraqis who feel that the United States was responsible for the death of thousands of Iraqis and Kurds (the latter because the US supplied chemical weapons to Hussein which he then used to gas the "insurgency"). What's the standard?

If you've ever called someone a "chicken," you may have been relying on subconscious knowledge. Regardless, you were more accurate than you may have known: Humans and chickens, it turns out, actually share some DNA. I wonder if that makes eating chicken cannibalism of a sort.

And finally, here's a great piece from the Village Voice on the Almighty Al Sharpton, who had no business running for President considering his woeful lack of experience and, as this article shows, no good moral reason either (thanks Al, for all those indignant assertions of moral superiority, now they make us all look bad for allowing you to stay in the limelight so long).