Magic Statistics

Last week, I blogged on human trafficking in the small impoverished eastern European republic of Moldova.  Transdniester, the tiny portion of Moldova east of the River Dniester, broke away from the rest of the country in 1990 and, although unrecognised by any nation, enjoys de facto independence.

The region may have broken away from Moldova, but it never left the Soviet era.

Wandering around Trans-Dniester is a short-lived blast. There's not a whole lot to see, but what there is seems lifted from a back lot at Pinewood studios, the one where fibreglass statues of Lenin served for Cold War backdrops.

In Trans-Dniester's capital Tiraspol, however the statues are real stone, upright, and unabashedly adorned with the hammer and sickle.

There is a general lack of advertising, flashy electrics and, well, shops. Everything that is sold, seems to be sold only by some arm of the Sheriff group - which is strongly tied to Trans-Dniester's Ming the Merciless lookalike leader Igor Smirnov.

Religious literature and church supplies are routinely confiscated at the border, whether one is entering or leaving the region.

Baptists and other Protestants, as well as Russian Orthodox and Jehovah's Witnesses have complained about continuing problems trying to bring religious literature and objects through checkpoints operated by the breakaway unrecognised entity of Transdniester, in eastern Moldova, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Religious material is routinely confiscated, while in the most known recent case, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church had his car impounded for four days after failing to declare church candles. Fr Oleg Cernat was taking the candles from his home in the suburbs of Dubosary, in Transdniester, to the Moldovan capital Chisinau.

When Forum 18 phoned the State Security Ministry to ask about the policy regarding confiscation of religious literature, officials simply hung up.

The parliament of Transdniester is considering an exceedingly restrictive religion law that would prevent legal recognition of any new religious organisations for the next ten years.  Unregistered religious communities may neither produce nor import literature.

Previous related post: Human trafficking in Eastern Europe

That's the conclusion reached by an international team of biologists studying the evolution of a particular organ in several species of roundworms.  The organ under study was the female's copulatory and egg-laying organ—the vulva.  This is what they discovered.

[E]volutionary changes among these species were unidirectional in nearly all instances.

For example, they concluded that the number of cell divisions needed in vulva development declined over time — instead of randomly increasing and decreasing. In addition, the team noted that the number of rings used to form the vulva consistently declined during the evolutionary process. These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not.

This sounds like it could have far-reaching consequences, not only for evolutionary biology, but also for understandings of God’s work in creation.

h/t: Faith-Science News

Previous related posts:

• Anglican theologian ridicules Dawkins’s claims
• Evolutionary scientist claims Darwinism “destroys” God
• Creation is a question of reason, not faith
• Evolution and creation are both right

Here’s a blast from climate change alarmism past:

Concern over Europe 'snow crisis'

Unseasonably warm conditions across Europe are being greeted with a mixture of disbelief and despair by those who normally rely on cold winters.
. . .
Many believe global warming is to blame for the lack of snow.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that many low-level resorts could soon be unviable and predicted warmer temperatures in the future.

That is from a BBC report datelined 17 December 2006.

Compare and contrast with current BBC weather news:

Early snows boost Alpine ski resorts

Dozens of ski resorts across the Alps have begun running their lifts after unprecedented levels of snow this month.

An official from the Austrian Tourist Office says last year’s poor snow season “was just a blip”.  Do tell.

h/t: Andrew Bolt

Previous related posts:

• Is there anything that doesn’t make global warming worse?
• Snow heats up the Arctic as much as greenhouse gases
• Global warming hits Malibu
• Global warming hits South Africa