Just Dance?

Proving for once and for all (one hopes) the age-old saying about books and covers: Presenting Susan Boyle.

Saletan summarizes a British Medical Journal piece recapping stuff we've heard before, but the numbers bear repeating: 124 boys born to every girl. 32 million more males under age 25 than girls. Why? "Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males."

Gallup has a treasure-trove of social science polling data on its site, none particularly inspiring. To wit:

• "Attendance among Roman Catholics dropped from 75% to 45%" from 1955 to the present day. "Whatever the causes, it is clear that U.S. Catholics' once-nearly uniform obedience to their church's requirement of weekly mass attendance has faded, and Catholics are now no different from Protestants in their likelihood to attend church."

• In a similar (and I don't think unrelated) vein, "Despite the Roman Catholic Church's official opposition to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, a Gallup analysis finds almost no difference between rank-and-file American Catholics and American non-Catholics in terms of finding the two issues morally acceptable."

[Click to see full polls.] More probably to come as I come across them.