The eldest children in families tend to develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings, researchers are reporting today, in a large study that could settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

This is, of course, old hat to some like myself. It’s about time researchers caught up with what us first born have know for years: we rock! Intellectually of course.

What I didn’t realize was that I apparently my 3% of superfluous brain matter by not attending a “elite private liberal-arts college [instead of] a less exclusive public one”. And all the while I thought I was smart for getting an equivalent education for $100,000 less. (Do student loans make you sharper?)

Unfortunately for “late borns” the trend seems to continue - downward. “Eldest children scored an average of 103.2, about 3 percent higher than second children (100.3) and 4 percent higher than thirdborns (99.0).” But not to fear younglings: while first born children win more Nobel Prizes, “younger siblings often live more adventurous lives” than there older counterparts.

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A fairly funny fwd:

IDIOT SIGHTING: I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when an airport employee asked, “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?

To which I replied, “If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?”

He smiled knowingly and nodded, “That’s why we ask.” This happened in Birmingham, AL.

Thanks Kristen

President Bush is headed to Capital Hill today to try and revive his immigration travesty.  In hearing all the spin on this bill and much ignorance about it’s provisions, I thought I would VERY simply point out the Amnesty in S. 1348.

Those supporting the bill like to point to all of these measures that such as learning English and fines to state that there is no Amnesty in this bill.  There are punishments.  There are hoops they have to jump through. But therein lies the dirty little secret of this bill that most people are missing: illegals won’t have to do ANY of those things.

That’s right.  The second this bill is signed into law every single illegal will be LEGAL. Done. Fini. The fine, the English, the mandatory trips back home… they are all steps to citizenship. Don’t want to be a citizen?  Oh - well, you’re legal… have a nice life!

This bill is amnesty because it’s solution to the 12-20 million illegals is to simply make them legal. Tada! No more millions of illegals in the country.  Problem solved right?  Right?  So while the provisions to bring the ex-illegals families into the country by the millions are economically scary and the promises at better enforcement of this new law over the current law are unbelievable, one thing is certain.  Waving a wand to make 20 million il-legals, legal IS Amnesty.

On Monday, the Democratic Presidential hopefuls reached out to the “Religious Right” by holding a forum with the head of the Sojourners Social Justice Ministry. Some of the attempts to connect with the faithful through biblical references were fairly amusing like Sen. Obama’s statement that “I am my brother’s keeper”.

Now while I’m sure Obama was proud that he remembered something from those Sunday school lessons long ago, he probably should have checked his reference. The only time the phrase “my brother’s keeper” is used in the bible is in Genesis 4:8-9. And its use is Cain attempting to change the subject when God asks about his brother Abel (recently killed by Cain). Probably not the imagery the Senator was hoping to conjure up.

Aside from the amusing allusions, there was on statement that I found to be quite shocking. Though no one else seemed to pick up on it. When John Edwards was asked “If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don’t you have a duty to go with your moral belief?”

His response? “No.” No? NO! John Edwards -at a forum that was supposedly faith based- wanted to make it clear that any morals that were held by him would not effect how he ran his Presidency. Now his response was actually quite longer than just no, here is the transcript for his full response: Read more