Eideard

And baby makes two…

It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education…

The forces rearranging the family are as diverse as globalization and the pill. Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage…

Which gives an idea how dim and out-of-date conservatives can be. Sad. Life really is more complex than black-and-white B movies.

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Rep. Barney Frank, the most prominent gay member of Congress, is getting married.

The Democrat, who is retiring from the House at the end of this term, will marry his partner, Jim Ready, in a Massachusetts ceremony. No date has been scheduled and no other details were provided…

Frank, 71, and Ready, 42, have been together since spring of 2007. The congressman told The New York Times in an interview after he announced his retirement that he wanted to spend more time with Ready, a photographer who also owns a business doing custom awnings, carpentry, painting, welding and other handyman services.

In 2007, Ready made headlines when he was arrested for growing marijuana in the backyard of his Maine home. Frank acknowledged in 2009 that he was present at the time of Ready’s arrest. The Boston Globe reported Ready pleaded guilty to civil possession of marijuana, and the charge was later dropped.

Frank, a liberal firebrand known for his quick wit, was first elected to the House in 1980. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank co-authored the most sweeping changes to banking industry regulations since the Great Depression…

There are four openly gay members of Congress, all Democrats: Frank and Reps. Jared Polis of Colorado, David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

That last sentence certainly says something about the most advanced, forward-looking and democratic corner of the country. But, then, the bastion of revolutionary separation from colonial England, the heart and soul of the abolition of slavery – would be expected to do no less than continue the region’s history of support for civil rights.

So, Barney – mazel tov!

A bird living on the coast of the US is the world’s most promiscuous bird, say scientists.

The saltmarsh sparrow, a bird that lives in the marshes of Connecticut, was found to have extreme levels of multiple mating.

The researchers found that 95% of females mated with more than one male during each nesting period.

This unusual behaviour could be a survival mechanism due to coastal flooding, researchers say…

“We found that nearly every clutch of eggs was the product of more than one father, and that within broods it was extremely common for any two siblings to have different fathers,” says Professor Chris Elphick from the University of Connecticut…

“We were not surprised to find some level of promiscuity,” he says. “But we were quite stunned at just how extreme the rate was…”

I wonder if there is any sort of survival mechanism associated with promiscuous humans? Or if, in fact, you might compromise your chances of survival, eh?

Ireland has recognized the legal rights of same-sex couples for the first time in a civil partnership bill that gave people in long-term relationships many of the statutory rights of married couples.

But it stopped short of recognizing civil marriage. There are strong rights conferred to marriage under the constitution of the traditionally Catholic country, which was amended to lift a ban on divorce in 1995.

“This bill provides legal protection for cohabiting couples and is an important step, particularly for same-sex couples, whose relationships have not previously been given legal recognition by the state,” Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said in a statement.

The legislation provides a range of previously denied rights including maintenance obligations, protection of a shared home and succession. “Balance is achieved by maintaining material distinctions between civil partnership and marriage, in particular between the rights attaching to both, while at the same time reflecting the equality rights protected by the constitution,” Ahern said.

The legalized sale of contraceptives caused controversy upon its introduction in 1979 in Ireland, where abortion still remains illegal.

Which gives you a couple of snaps of life in the world outside of American baseball. Federal law rarely is distracted by the state-vs-feds crap we get to put up with in the U.S. as an excuse for reactionary behavior.

You can see how far backwards we can move – quick as a bunny – if you start giving up on essential civil rights. The anti-choice inquisition would reinstate laws against contraception as quickly as any other question involving choice over superstition.

Oracle Corp plans to buy Sun Microsystems Inc for more than $7 billion, after the high-end computer server and software maker’s talks with IBM fell apart.

In a surprise announcement on Monday, Oracle said it will pay $9.50 a share. Sun had previously turned down IBM’s offer to pay up to $9.40 a share, according to sources with knowledge of the matter…

Talks between Sun and Oracle began late on Thursday, according to a source with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The two companies have been partners with more than two decades. Oracle’s Fusion Middleware, its fastest-growing business, is built on Sun’s Java software. Sun’s Solaris operating system is also a main platform for Oracle’s database business…

Sun’s board had unanimously approved the deal, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

Let the market analysis begin…