Paternal Cousin Beats Maternal Cousin as a Spouse

Marriage between close relatives—or, more precisely, the inbreeding among children born as a result of such unions—is harmful. This is because offspring are more likely than usual to inherit the same gene variant from both parents.

In such cases, recessive genes become expressed in the children's phenotype, causing recessively inherited diseases to manifest. As a result, children born to related parents face a higher risk of congenital structural abnormalities, developmental disabilities, deafness and blindness, as well as infant and child mortality. In addition, inbreeding reduces the cognitive ability of offspring born from such relationships, which has a negative effect on their success in life.

If marriages between relatives occur within the same family or community over several consecutive generations, genetic diversity decreases and the genetic risks increase further. Despite these disadvantages, marriage between cousins is common in many cultures.

More than 10 percent of the world's population enters into such marriages—this has also become increasingly common in Finland and other Western countries in recent years as a result of increased humanitarian immigration. For this reason, it has been suspected that such marriages may be associated with some benefit that has caused this—in itself highly harmful—cultural practice to become established in some cultures.

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One such benefit was identified in a study published by French researcher Olympia L. K. Campbell. It concerned the effect of kinship relationships on conflicts within the household, i.e. domestic violence.

The study was based on two competing hypotheses. According to the first, blood kinship would align spouses' interests and increase monitoring by relatives, thereby reducing men's incentives and opportunities to use coercion. According to the second hypothesis, close kinship networks would place family unity above women's autonomy, suppressing help-seeking and making it easier to control women.

Campbell compared these hypotheses using data collected from approximately 36,000–46,000 women in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey. In this dataset, marriage to a first cousin was associated with a 2.5-percentage-point lower probability of physical intimate-partner violence compared with marriages in which the spouses were not blood relatives.

For a woman, this corresponds to an approximately 11 percent lower relative risk of violence. In addition, the researcher found a similar reduction in coercive controlling behavior toward wives.

Interestingly, marriage to a paternal cousin reduced the risk of physical violence more than marriage to a maternal cousin. Thus, it appears that the protective effect stems from the authority of the man's relatives over men, rather than from the spouse's kinship itself. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Blame the Philanthropist Or Understand the Facts
Society, Genetics, and the Impact of Consanguineous Marriages: At the Intersection of Education and Heredity
Cousin is not just a delicacy, but also a hindrance to social success

Iranian Missile Attack was Followed by Humorous Flowers

Iran launched around 200 missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted. However, some missiles managed to get through the defense in central and southern Israel, resulting in the death of a Palestinian in the West Bank. Additionally, some material damage occurred as missiles hit empty homes and cars. According to American sources, minor damage was also inflicted on one of Israel’s military bases.

Against this backdrop, I found it somewhat incredible to read the writings of Muslims on social media. Or what do you, dear reader, think of these flowers of humor?

First, according to an account with a female figure (most probably not a woman): "Iranian state TV just ran this", followed by a flamboyant video clearly made using artificial intelligence or some other tricks.

Second, according to Iran’s military: "90% of our weapon systems successfully struck their intended targets".

Third, according to the Lebanon Times: "Pakistan’s Shaheen III missiles can strike Israel in a few minutes. This is the right time—Pakistan must provide its missiles to Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestine. Long live Iran."

My interpretation is that Iranian state TV is spreading unwieldy false information, the Iranian military is simply lying, and the Lebanon Times wants to subject Pakistan to Israel’s counterattacks. However, an ordinary Iranian has no chance of being factually informed.

I tell you, during the Winter War, Finns were not adequately informed about the situation on the front, and when Finland agreed to peace, including the loss of large areas, ordinary citizens were furious. Having learned from this, the events of the Continuation War were reported honestly. This made life much easier for both politicians and the people after the war.

The difference between today’s Iran and 1940s Finland is that the former is a dictatorial theocracy that doesn’t care about its people's lives and health. In contrast, the latter was a true democracy serving its inhabitants.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Mentally Elementary-School-Aged Were Attacked, But Will Iran Come to Their Aid?
Hassan Nasrallah Has Been Killed, but Lebanon Is Unlikely to Become the Switzerland of the Middle East Again
What Does the Failure of Hezbollah's Attack Tell Us?

A white family does not represent real Londoners

The "woke" culture originating from the United States annoys many people. Nevertheless, its influence is immense, as anyone who follows yesterday's main news broadcast noticed when our taxpayer-funded media reported on a dance video being filmed in Helsinki, Finland.

The dance video was based on a Korean song, and almost all of the approximately one hundred young participants had skin tones that were either of Finnish or East Asian appearance. However, the reporter from Yle (Finnish Broadcasting Company) had chosen to interview a girl of evidently African origin (presumably biracial) as the first interviewee.

This could, of course, be mere coincidence, but the phenomenon is far too common in Finnish society (where more than 90 percent are white Europeans)  for it not to be deliberate – as everyone could deduce for themselves, such as from the skin tones of people appearing in clothing advertisements (example). Behind this likely lies the enormous pressure caused by the "woke" culture on people in Western societies.

One consequence of this pressure seems to be some sort of self-deprecation among European individuals. An astonishing example of this was reported by some of the smaller newspapers, which conveyed a claim written on the London Mayor's website stating that a white family "does not represent real Londoners." Therefore, it was deemed inappropriate for city branding.

The caption was allegedly posted on the website accidentally. This might be believed by all those who wish to, but in my view, such an explanation is not plausible. In my opinion, the text has undoubtedly been written deliberately and added to the website either with or without the mayor's permission.

In either case, the caption clearly displays content that belittles the European native population under the influence of woke culture—potentially even containing racist undertones towards us. Especially when the name of the London Mayor is Sadiq Khan and his roots trace back to Pakistan.

The power of woke culture is also indicated by the fact that neither Yle nor the biggest private newspaper - Helsingin Sanomat - has published any news concerning the London Mayor, despite the fact that it was already available for reading in Etelä-Suomen Sanomat two day ago.

The original blogpost in Finnish:
Valkoihoinen perhe ei edusta todellisia lontoolaisia

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
"Woke" pushes American science academies to favor women in their membership selections
Finnish journalist called for British Prime Minister´s head to be placed on London bridge to dry
China is betting on scientific excellence