Friday, January 26, 2007

Of gay sheep, slaughtered sheep, and abortion: The Belgian demographic advance story and the Oregon technological advance story.

Mark Steyn provides humor to a not-so-funny debate:

The first story is about the 25,000 sheep in Brussels that a few days ago found themselves pointed toward Mecca and then slit through the throat and bled to death. Muslims do this to celebrate Eid al-Adha, which commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God and God's willingness to settle for a ram in lieu. The Belgian Muslim population has grown so fast that there aren't enough places in the city to perform the ritual sacrifice, and come Eid it's like sheep drivetime at every Brussels slaughterhouse, with rams backed up ram-to-ram as far as the eye can see. As reported by the Journal, Mohamed Mimoun grabbed his sheep, took a number and realized he was in for a two-hour wait. Even worse, en route to the slaughterhouse, he was stopped by a cop and fined for having the sheep in the trunk of his Toyota. By law, the sheep is supposed to ride in the rear passenger seats. Baa, baa, back seat.

On which note, let us turn to the gay sheep. Apparently, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University and Oregon State University have been experimenting with ovine hormonal balances in order to persuade homosexual rams of the error of their ways. It seems they've had "considerable success" with injecting hormones into the rams' brains. Suddenly the lads are playing the field and crooning a couple of choruses of "Embrace me, my sweet embraceable ewe."

Read the whole story here, and there's more here.

1 comment:

Jim Newman said...

Your summary of the Oregon research is is waaay off.

The Times article that you refer to explains this as does this:
The Guardian: Gay sheep? Let's get the facts straight
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1989430,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11

and this: TIME Magazine: Yep, Their Gay
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582336,00.html