No, Scientists Have Not Found the Gay Gene

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This week, a team from the University of California, Los Angeles claimed to have found several epigenetic marks—chemical modifications of DNA that don’t change the underlying sequence—that are associated with homosexuality in men. Postdoc Tuck Ngun presented the results yesterday at the American Society of Human Genetics 2015 conference. Nature News were among the first to break the story based on a press release issued by the conference organisers. Others quickly followed suit. “Have They Found The Gay Gene?” said the front page of Metro, a London paper, on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, the mood at the conference has been decidedly less complimentary, with several geneticists criticizing the methods presented in the talk, the validity of the results, and the coverage in the press.

Ngun’s study was based on 37 pairs of identical male twins who were discordant—that is, one twin in each pair was gay, while the other was straight—and 10 pairs who were both gay. He analysed 140,000 regions in the genomes of the twins and looked for methylation marks—chemical Post-It notes that dictate when and where genes are activated. He whittled these down to around 6,000 regions of interest, and then built a computer model that would use data from these regions to classify people based on their sexual orientation. . .

The problems begin with the size of the study, which is tiny. The field of epigenetics is littered with the corpses of statistically underpowered studies like these, which simply lack the numbers to produce reliable, reproducible results. . .

There’s also another, larger issue . . . the team used their training set to build several models for classifying their twins, and eventually chose the one with the greatest accuracy when applied to the testing set. . . If you use this strategy, chances are you will find a positive result through random chance alone.
(Read more from “No, Scientists Have Not Found the Gay Gene” HERE)

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No Surprise: Facebook Is Stalking You

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Facebook is following you around the Web. You knew that, right?

How else would Facebook know to serve that panda video straight into your news feed, and leave your college friend’s ill-informed rant about Pacific trade deals in the dark bowels of its servers? How else would it know to serve you with 7,000 ads for wedding dress vendors the very day you announce your engagement?

Facebook knows what you like. It knows what you don’t like. It probably knows whether you have been naughty or nice, and will be selling that data to Santa this Christmas season.

This bothers many people, especially since Facebook keeps expanding the list of things it knows about you, and the ways it is willing to use that data to make money.

The recent announcement that Facebook would soon target ads using your “likes” and “shares” has triggered some Olympic-level teeth- gnashing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because Facebook will get information from you not just when you actually like, “like” something, but when you load a page that has a “like” button on it. (Read more from “No Surprise: Facebook Is Stalking You” HERE)

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Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run

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If you’re going to run for president, Kanye West, you might as well listen to someone who’s been there and done that.

“I do have some advice for him,” President Barack Obama said during a West Coast fundraiser featuring an appearance by the rapper. “Just some stuff that I’ve picked up on the way” . . .

“First of all, you’ve got to spend a lot of time dealing with some strange characters who behave like they’re on a reality TV show,” Obama said. “So you’ve just to be cool with that.” (Read more from “Here’s What Obama Had to Say About Rapper Kanye West’s Presidency Run” HERE)

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This Is What Donald Trump Says Should’ve Happened to Bowe Bergdahl

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By Associated Press. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan.

“We’re tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who’s a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed,” Trump said to cheers at a rowdy rally inside a packed Las Vegas theater at the casino-hotel Treasure Island . . .

It was practically an aside in a litany of complaints at the end of a more than hourlong, free-wheeling speech that included a large dose of media-bashing and a claim that he was behind Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s decision to drop out of the race for House speaker. (Read more from “This Is What Donald Trump Says Should’ve Happened to Bowe Bergdahl” HERE)

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Democrats Troll Donald Trump With ‘America Is Already Great’ Hat

By Denver Nicks. Donald Trump is famous for a few things. There’s real estate, of course, and his reality television shows. There’s his headline-factory personality. There’s the hair. And now there’s the red hat and the slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

How can the Democrats complete with all that? They can’t have his real estate empire or his TV show, not his made-for-prime-time personality and certainly not his hair (it’s unlikely science will ever fully unlock its secrets). But what they can have is a hat of their own.

The Democratic National Committee Friday unveiled a new baseball cap for sale on its website ($28) with the slogan “America is Already Great.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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John Boehner Says He’s Staying – At Least For Now

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By Stephen Dinan. House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday he’ll stay in Congress until there’s a replacement speaker — raising the possibility he could stay on beyond the end-of-October retirement date he’d set for himself.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, his top lieutenant and the man expected to succeed him, withdrew from the race in a surprise move, sending House Republicans into disarray.

Mr. Boehner canceled the elections that had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon to choose the next speaker, and afterward issued a statement saying he’s not going anywhere — for now.

“As I have said previously, I will serve as speaker until the House votes to elect a new speaker,” he said. “We will announce the date for this election at a later date, and I’m confident we will elect a new speaker in the coming weeks.”

He had set an Oct. 29 date for an election in the whole House, which would have chosen his replacement and ushered him into retirement. That could still happen, but with the House scheduled to be on vacation next week and a major hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton slated for the week after, it’s unclear whether such a deadline is likely. (Read more from “John Boehner Says He’ll Stay Until Replacement Is Chosen” HERE)

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GOP Civil War Rages as McCarthy Falls

By David Lightman. Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s startling decision to pull out of the race for speaker of the House of Representatives was the latest vivid illustration of how today’s Republican Party is bitterly divided between hardcore conservatives and pragmatists.

And there’s little hope of healing anytime soon.

The Republican civil war has been escalating for years, particularly since the dawn of the tea party movement six years ago.

It’s intensified this summer and fall, thanks to a presidential race featuring three Washington outsiders leading most Republican polls. It’s obvious daily at the Capitol, where Republicans may control both chambers, but they struggle to get much done as they bicker among themselves.

McCarthy, the House majority leader, was the clear favorite to succeed Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who plans to step down at the end of the month. But the California congressman was hardly a consensus choice. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Wikileaks Release of TPP Deal Text Stokes ‘Freedom of Expression’ Fears

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Wikileaks has released what it claims is the full intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial agreement between 12 countries that was signed off on Monday.

TPP was negotiated in secret and details have yet to be published. But critics including Democrat presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, unions and privacy activists have lined up to attack what they have seen of it. Wikileaks’ latest disclosures are unlikely to reassure them.

One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as “parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread.

A drafter’s note says that every participating country’s individual laws about whistleblowing would still apply.

“The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.” (Read more from “Wikileaks Release of TPP Deal Text Stokes ‘Freedom of Expression’ Fears” HERE)

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Federal Workers Earn 78% More Than Private Sector Employees

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Are we allowed to talk about the “income inequality” gap between employees of the federal government and the private sector? Because it’s huge, it’s been huge for a long time, and it’s and getting worse.

According to a study of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, conducted by the Cato Institute, compensation for federal workers is 78% higher on average than compensation for private sector employees.

“Federal civilian workers had an average wage of $84,153 in 2014, compared to an average in the private sector of $56,350,” according to the Cato review. “The federal advantage in overall compensation (wages plus benefits) is even greater. Federal compensation averaged $119,934 in 2014, which was 78 percent higher than the private-sector average of $67,246.”

To put this in perspective, the federal government has “the fourth highest paid workers in the United States, after utilities, mining, and the management of companies.” The government pays better than information services, the financial sector, the insurance industry, and scientific industries. Federal compensation is more than double what the education industry receives, and over three times what retail workers make.

This would seem problematic in light of left-wing class warfare rhetoric. Compensation for the education industry is supposed to be the veritable benchmark of fairness. We are constantly told it’s outrageous that various professions are paid more than teachers. How, then, can statists justify federal workers making over twice what the education industry pays? (Read more from “Federal Workers Earn 78% More Than Private Sector Employees” HERE)

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Major Hollywood Actor Opens up About His Christian Faith

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Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman, who will play the apostle Paul in an upcoming film, has opened up about his Christian faith and revealed that he seeks to honor God with his performances.

In a recent interview with Parade magazine, the 46-year-old Australian native first revealed that he was inspired to go into acting as a young boy after watching pastors speak in church.

“I’m a Christian. I was brought up very religious. I used to go to different evangelists’ [revival] tents all the time,” he said, “When I was about 13, I had a weird premonition that I was going to be onstage, like the preachers I saw.”

When asked what acting gives him that he “really needs”, Jackman said, “That’s the best question I’ve ever been asked. Peace. There are things driving me that aren’t all healthy-[needing] approval and respect to fill some hole who-knows-where in me. Am I worthy? All those fears. Through acting, I’m able to find a level of bliss and peace and calm and joy. And it feels natural” . . .

“This is going to sound weird to you. In Chariots of Fire the runner Eric Liddell says, ‘When I run, I feel His pleasure.’ And I feel that pleasure when I act and it’s going well, particularly onstage,” Jackman said. (Read more from “Major Hollywood Actor Opens up About His Christian Faith” HERE)

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GOP Presidential Hopeful Carson Discusses Constitution and Same-Sex Marriage

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That’s the basic message behind “A More Perfect Union,” a book that author Ben Carson hopes will tell his reader, as the subtitle puts it, “what we the people can do to reclaim our constitutional liberties.”

Carson admits up front he’s no constitutional scholar. His expertise and most of his fame come from being a pediatric neurosurgeon, although his conservative political views have propelled him to the forefront of the GOP presidential race. But while surgery is complicated, Carson views the supreme law of the land as sublimely simple.

“That’s the wonderful thing about the Constitution, it’s written in a way that people can understand,” Carson said in a phone interview with the Herald. “There are those who want you to think it’s so complex you can’t understand it, but if you read it, it’s written at an eighth-grade level” . . .

Carson is adamantly opposed to the Supreme Court’s June decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the country, ruling that the equitable application of marriage law is a question of “equal protection of the laws” under the Fourteenth Amendment. But the doctor says the people’s vote in states that had banned recognition of gay marriage shouldn’t be ignored by federal courts.

“The reason we address civil issues at the state and local level is because it’s a question of lifestyle,” and local officials will be more in tune with locals’ views on such sensitive issues than federal ones. “They can decide what’s most compatible with their belief system, and someone else shouldn’t impose their will on them.” (Read more from “GOP Presidential Hopeful Carson Discusses Constitution” HERE)

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Watch: Oregon Gun Supporters Protest Obama’s Trip to Comfort Families of Shooting Victims

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More than 200 pro-gun advocates protested President Obama’s visit on Oct. 9 to Roseburg, Oregon, where he privately met and comforted the families of victims of the mass shooting on Oct. 1 that took nine lives.

“By coming here, Obama is going to politicize a tragedy by saying that you have to have gun control,” protester George Starr told the Associated Press.

However, Obama had a private meeting with the families, not a public appearance, which was made clear all week in pre-advance notices.

“I’m here to tell Obama he is not welcome in our county,” Bruce Rester added. “He is exploiting the local tragedy with his gun control agenda.”

“Everybody should carry a gun,” Rester stated. “An armed society is a polite society.” (Read more from “Oregon Gun Supporters Protest Obama’s Trip to Comfort Families of Shooting Victims” HERE)

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