TheFactIs writer Mr. Dale O’Leary took on the subject of stay at home moms this last Monday.^[1] It is well worth reading, and included here thanks to their generous copyright clause.

A new study by Bradford Wilcox and Steven Nock has discovered that, contrary to feminist theory, splitting work outside the home and the work of the home 50/50 between husband and wife is not the path to marital bliss. The survey of 5,000 women revealed that American women who don’t work outside the home are happier than those who do and even when they do have a job they are more content if their husband earns the lion share of the income while they do the majority of the housework.

Women know that statistical equality — where the husband earns half the money and does half the house work and half the childcare — is a trap. They can do the math.

While we talk about the 40-hour week, the fact is that in order to earn enough to support his family, the husband may have to spend 50 to 70 hours a week in work related activity.

A woman, who chooses to make the work of the home her primary vocation, understands that her husband’s job often takes more time and effort than her work.

On the other hand, an organized woman with four children and a four bedroom house should be able to accomplish all the work required to maintain family life in less than 40 hours a week — and there is no commute.

To this must be added child care. The time required for direct child related activities varies greatly depending on the number and ages of the children, but much of this work meshes with the care of the home. For example, a mother may spend several hours a week shopping, but she takes the children with her. When everything is considered the stay-at home mom’s actual work week is comparable to her husbands. And she has the added benefit of being the primary educator of her children.

On the other hand, if the husband and wife both have full time jobs outside the home and divide the work of the home and care of the children equally between them, the both may end up with putting in 80 hour work weeks. They may make more money, but the extra money may end up being spent on housecleaning services, fast food, childcare, and work related expenses, including clothing, meals, commuting, taxes, and other payroll deductions. To all this is added the stress of transporting small children to day care.

Several years ago I saw a program on TV where an economist had been called in to help a family struggling to balance work and family life. So as not to incur child care costs the wife worked nights and weekends as a nurse and the husband worked days as a tree surgeon. They had no time for each other, both were completely exhausted, and money was still a problem.

The economist was blunt: The wife’s job was actually costing the family money. If the wife quit her job, the husband could work evenings and weekends during storms. This additional overtime pay would be more than the wife’s income after costs and payroll deductions were figured in and they would have time to be together. On hearing this news the wife burst into tears.

And it isn’t just the money. When wife makes the work of the home and the care of the family her primary job, she doesn’t come home from her first job to a second job. Her husband doesn’t come home to a second job. Both have the luxury of free time. Thus although their income may be less, their ability to enjoy what they have is greater.

Once the children are in school full time, the mother may decide to take up part time or low stress work — in other words a second job. For example, some women have found that being a school bus driver is a good way to earn extra money and has the advantage that a mother never has to work on a day when her children are home from school.

Not all at-home moms are happy at home. Some don’t treat the work of the home as a professional job. They are unorganized and undisciplined. They allow the clutter to pile up and put off essential tasks and then feel overburdened. Others don’t use their free time productively. Women who have creative hobbies, are engaged in satisfying educational, civic or charitable activities, or find work they can do at home tend to be more content and happy than those who don’t.

It is not surprising that many young mothers are choosing to put their careers on hold and make the work of the home their primary vocation. They have calculated the benefits and weighed the costs.^[1]

1. Mr. Dale O’Leary. “The Reality of Happy Homemakers” TheFactIs.org 2006-03-20. http://www.thefactis.org/default.aspx?control=ArticleMaster&aid=1502&authid=7

In the sort of case that you might have expected to see in Spain during the height of the Inquisition, an Afghan man is being prosecuted and faces the death penalty for converting to Christianity.^[1] I saw this elsewhere yesterday, but lost the link in a browser crash. From what I gather, it appears that even under the newer government in Afghanistan, religious freedom is pretty much nonexistent. Everyone has to obey Islamic religious law, including the part that says that someone who abandons Islam should be killed. This pretty much negates the ability of any religion to convert anyone, even outside the country (as is apparently the case here), if they might return to, move to, or visit Afghanistan. Well, not really, they can of course convert, but the convert will be at risk…

1. Mrs. Michelle Malkin. “A Christian On Trial” www.michellemalkin.com 2006-03-19. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004796.htm

What in plate tectonics explains the characteristic sulfur fumes surrounding an earthquake?^[1] This is a question I do not see being asked, much less answered.

1. Mr. Axel Bojanowski. “A Continent Splits Apart” Spiegel Online 2006-03-15. http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,405947,00.html

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5). The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn�t matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you�ll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone. Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 69% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 69% Serenity (Firefly) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Moya (Farscape) 63% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 44% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 38% SG-1 (Stargate) 38% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 19%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

The other day, AOL “opened” up their AIM system, providing a Software Development Kit(SDK) at http://developer.aim.com/. Unfortunately, their SDK is far from open. Rather, it faces two significant restrictions: 1)it is limited in the number of connections a client using it can have to the server and 2)it cannot be used by a cross protocol client.

Today, more and more users have friends who prefer different IM systems. This is particularly true of those users who are willing to investigate alternative clients. For this reason, the cross protocol clients such as gaim, kopete or trillian are, for many users, the most, often only, interesting ones. AOL does not make money off of AIM directly, but does benefit from it in some way, or it would not be continued. That benefit, whatever it happens to be, is most strongly present if a majority of the world’s users are AIM users. Thus there is a strong incentive to disallow interoperability. This logic flows cleanly from the early blocks preventing the MSN client from connecting to AIM, and later blocks preventing jabber transports.

Seen in this light, the “Open AIM” site, with its SDK, is just another attempt to keep users locked in. “You do not like our client? Fine, you can write your own, but only if you continue to only use AIM, and only if you promise not to become popular.” It is, in fact, nothing more than a marketing ploy, a show of openness designed to mislead users into thinking they are playing nice.

This scam has dangers of its own. Its very existence could be used to mount an attempt to block 3rd parties that do not use the SDK, on the grounds that only users of the SDK are authorized. Conveniently forgotten would be the fact that some of us have been connecting for years without an SDK, and cannot use it now that there is one; that the SDK might as well continue to not exist so far as projects such as gaim are concerned.

The problem with looking at things as evidence for evolution is that you inevitably start from the assumption that evolution did occur. Thus “x is caused by y because y is the only reasonable evolutionary explanation of x,” and “evolution is true because y causes x.” If you read closely, you can see this happening in a recent New York Times article.^[1] The age of genes controlling skin color is at once proof that humans have evolved “recently,” and that they have evolved “recently” proof that there were changes in diet or lifestyle.

The problem here is that such nearly circular logic can only be held as a viable theory if you accept the sole break in the circle as true. In this case, if you accept that a solely material cause must be responsible, then you are good to go. If however, you allow for any non-evolutionary causes, then you are faced with the question “why should I accept that this is in fact caused by evolution?” The answer that it must have been caused by evolution because we see it no longer satisfies.

1. Mr. Nicholas Wade. “Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story” The New York Times 2006-03-07. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=03aecd6036986b0e&ex=1299387600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Mr. Burt Prelutsky is incredibly harsh on the ladies.^[1] His point, however poorly worded, is important, and his example (elephants) even more so. Simply put, men and women are equal in some respects (their inherent human dignity for example) but not in others. Rather, they are complementary. Thus the ideal family includes both a father and a mother, both being necessary to provide the most ideal environment for the raising of both male and female children. Sure, single dads can do well, and single moms can do well. And yes, some couples will fail to raise their children properly. It is not, however, ideal for a woman to be a single mom, or a man to be a single father. For this reason, widows and widowers would remarry, often thinking more of their children’s needs than their own.

1. Mr. Burt Prelutsky. “Moms make lousy dads” Townhall.com 2006-03-07. http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/BurtPrelutsky/2006/03/07/188868.html

Apparently I have been “entirely obstructive” with regards to gaim and autopackage.^[1] I consider this a complement, as I tend to agree more with (Mr.?) Josselin Mouette’s post^[2] than not. Mr. Hearn is essentially just a troll, sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying, but always just a troll.

1. Mr. Mike Hearn. “on the future of autopackage.” “Mike’s Journal” 2006-03-03. http://plan99.net/~mike/blog/?p=30
2. Josselin Mouette. “Making fun of people is bad…” “Joss’s blog” 2006-03-04. http://np237.livejournal.com/7010.html

Have you ever considered the idea that a patriarchy might not always be a misogynistic society noteworthy primarily for male tyranny? Mr. Mark Adams refers to an article that argues just this in his latest post to “Friday Fax.”^[1] According to him, this article is in a magazine called “Foreign Policy,” I would like to read it (the article), I wonder if it is freely available online?

1. Mr. Mark Adams. “Demographer Says Religious, Cultural Conservatives on the Rise” Friday Fax Volume 9 Number 11, 2006-03-03. The FactIs.org. http://www.thefactis.org/default.aspx?control=ArticleMaster&aid=1493&authid=11

This^[1] made my day. Further consider that some of those are libgaim using clients. ☺

1. Mr. Rod Chavez. “Third Party Client Use of the Google Talk Service” Google Talkabout 2006-03-02. http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/03/third-party-client-use-of-google-talk.html