In the Central African Republic it is an offense to be a "witch" and prisons are full of children and adults accused of sorcery

Children accused of witchcraft number in the thousands in the DR Congo, the Central African Republic, southern Nigeria, and parts of Angola.

As many as 200 women are lynched every year in India after being accused of practising witchcraft

The deaths are most prevalent in poverty-stricken villages populated by tribal groups in the northern Indian state of Jharkhand, with cases also reported in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Orissa. Avdhash Kaushal, chairman of the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, said that most victims were single or widowed and were often targeted for their land or money. They are often forced to drink urine or eat excreta in public and are then paraded naked through the village. An estimated 200 are killed each year, with many more committing suicide afterwards out of shame. In the last 15 years, more than 2500 women have been killed for being witches, Kaushal estimated.

Criminal gangs are exploiting the immigration system to bring new gang members into Britain through networks of bogus businesses

Scotland Yard has said that around half of London's organized crime gangs are "cultural networks" whose members share a foreign nationality - typically from countries such as Turkey, China and Vietnam whose citizens require visas to come to Britain. British Border Agency officers, operating in Calais, discovered two Vietnamese illegal immigrants sealed in airtight plastic bags by smugglers, in a bid to avoid detection by probes which measure carbon dioxide levels. In another recent case, officials at Dover found a 16-year-old Vietnamese girl hidden behind the dashboard of a car, surrounded by electrical wiring.

Domestic abuse in Turkey

According to a 2009 Turkish government report, 42% of women surveyed said they had been the victims of either physical or sexual abuse by their husband or partner. The report concluded that one in four married Turkish women had been injured by partner violence. Meanwhile, one in ten Turkish women were injured by such violence while pregnant. Some Turkish activists fear the real statistics for violence against women may actually be much higher. Domestic violence against women is not confined to economically-depressed, rural regions of eastern Turkey. According to the Turkish government survey, the statistics for physical and sexual assault were roughly the same in the countryside as in the most developed, fast-growing cities in the western part of the country. Despite widespread violence against women, in 2009 the Turkish government reported there were only 52 state-run shelters for women in the entire country. Those shelters have the capacity to house less than 1,300 residents, in a country where the population exceeds 70 million.

Women are attracted to macho men and see modesty as a sign of evolutionary weakness

Women see modesty amongst men as a poor character trait that could adversely affect their employability or earnings potential.

A poll shows that 62% of voters think that the United States is on the decline

Only 26% believe it is on the rise. Most Republicans — 76% — think the country is in decline, and 64% of independents agree. Views among Democrats are more evenly split: 41% say on the rise and 43% say on the decline. There's a slight gender gap as men (64%) are somewhat more likely than women (59%) to take the negative view of the country's progress. Across generations there is substantial agreement: young voters ages 35 and under (58%) are about as likely as seniors 65 and over (57%) to think things are on a downward slide.

ADL and the Ground Zero mosque

Paul Krugman is shocked that, for once, the Jewish organization known as the Anti-Defamation League has sided with white Christians.

Oliver Stone and Jewish power

Powerful Jew tries to destroy Oliver Stone for saying that Jews are powerful.

Census figures show that only 13% of Hispanics have a college degree or higher, compared with 30% among Americans overall

This is partially explained by the fact that Latinos are more likely to drop out of high school and have children outside of marriage than are white Americans.

New poll finds that 59% of U.S. voters favor passage of an Arizona-like immigration law in their own states

Most voters (53%) now say it’s better for individual states to act on their own to enforce immigration laws rather than relying on the federal government for enforcement. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republicans and 70% of voters not affiliated with either major party favor passage of an Arizona-like immigration law in their own states. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Democrats oppose such a law. When it comes to enforcement of immigration laws, 63% of Democrats think it’s better to rely on the federal government. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans and 60% of unaffiliated voters have more confidence in individual states to enforce the law. While most voters oppose the federal challenge of Arizona’s effort to fight illegal immigration, 54% think the Justice Department should take legal action against cities that provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Even more think the federal government should cut off funds to these “sanctuary cities.” Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters believe the federal government by failing to enforce immigration law is more to blame for the current controversy over Arizona’s new statute than state officials are for passing it. By a two-to-one margin, voters believe the policies of the federal government encourage people to enter the United States illegally. Voters have consistently said for years that when it comes to immigration reform, gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already living in the United States. Support for the building of a fence along the Mexican border has reached a new high, and voters are more confident than ever that illegal immigration can be stopped.

Related:

Rasmussen: Arizonans Still Support Law. And See Who Trusts The States More Than The Feds

The UN refugee agency has urged Saudi Arabia to stop deporting Somalis, saying 2,000 people have recently been sent to Mogadishu

Even fellow Muslims don't want people from Somalia living in their country.

African American students account for 39% of the total special education population

Blacks are 47% of the students labeled as having emotional and behavior disorders and 57% of students with intellectual disabilities. African American students are more likely to receive their instruction in a special education classroom away from their non-disabled peers. They were more likely to be served in the general education classroom less than 40% of the school day, and least likely to be served in the general education classroom for more than 80% of the school day.

Jewish hostility to Christians: the prejudice no one ever writes about

Damian Thompson writes about anti-gentile bigotry amongst Jews.

Related:

Glenn Beck, the Weather Underground, and SDS

Exceptional intellectual ability is associated with bipolar disorder

A study has found that individuals with excellent school performance had a nearly fourfold increased risk of later bipolar disorder compared with those with average grades. This association appeared to be confined to males.

Obama says that African-Americans are a mongrel people

He is actually correct but can you imagine the uproar if a white person described blacks as mongrels?

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with arterial stiffness, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke, in black teens

Researchers found that 95% of black teenagers living in sunny Georgia who took part in a study were classified as vitamin D deficient.

An Indian court has slapped a big fine on a woman who cited her husband's sexual impotence as grounds for divorce finding she had defamed his manhood

A judge in central Madhya Pradesh state ordered Vandana Gurjar to pay 200,000 rupees (£2,747) to her estranged husband Hemant Chhalotre. Chhalotre had complained the impotence accusation "rendered him unmarriageable and sullied his prestige". The amount of the fine far exceeds the annual income of millions living in India. Gurjar married Chhalotre nine years ago but left him after just three months, and later sought a divorce, which was granted by the courts, on the grounds that she "could not have conjugal bliss with Chhalotre as he was impotent". Chhalotre then sued his wife for defaming his manhood.

A Lebanese national has been arrested for allegedly insulting the country's president, Michel Sleiman, on Facebook

Ahmad Shuman was detained shortly after he arrived in Beirut's international airport on a flight from Kiev. According to prosecutors, Shuman committed "libel, slander and defamation" when he and three friends set up a page on the social networking website to criticize President Sleiman. Although widely seen as the Arab world's most democratic state, Lebanon has strict laws created to punish those who insult the president. The office is seen as the embodiment of the republic, although the position of prime minister, presently held by Saad Hariri, is considered more powerful. The four men created a page on the website that carried the title "We don't want a hypocrite as president". The page has been taken down, but a cached version carried a lengthy essay criticizing Sleiman's performance as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It also attacked the "vagueness" of his political position, claiming that he had tried to be both pro-American and pro-Syrian at the same time, and that he had ruled out peace with Israel while also backing negotiations with the Jewish state. The four men called the president "the worst kind of failure" and wrote disparaging comments elsewhere on the website. Shuman's colleagues, Naim Hanna, Antoine Ramia and Shebel Qasab, all in their twenties, were arrested and charged with the same offenses in June 2010. It is the first time in Lebanon that such charges have been brought against individuals for comments they made on the Internet, a fact that has prompted strong criticism from human rights groups. The four men face up to two years in prison if convicted.

An Indian congressman Sambhajirao Kunjir has been beaten with chairs and kicked by rivals at a meeting in India

Congress workers loyal to former District Congress president, Devidas Bansali attacked Kunjir with chairs when he tried to put his point of view during a meeting to elect a new president.

A man has been sentenced death for killing a five-year-old albino girl in Tanzania by hacking off her legs with a machete and then drinking her blood

The High Court in the northern town of Mwanza convicted 50-year-old Kazimiri Mashauri after hearing he disappeared with the severed limbs and left her to die. The girl’s killing was one of a spate of attacks on the country’s estimated 200,000 albinos in the past years, mostly in the remote northwest of the country near Lake Victoria, where superstition runs deep. Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood and body parts for potions. Their body parts are prized in some regions of Tanzania, where witchdoctors say albinos – who lack pigment in their skin, eyes and hair – bring luck in love, life and business. In November 2009, Tanzania’s high court sentenced four men to death for butchering a 50-year-old albino man. The Tanzania Albino Society fears there could be a new wave of albino killings in the east Africa’s second largest economy ahead of elections on Oct. 31, 2010. Around 60 albinos have been killed for their body parts in Tanzania in the past two years, but campaigners say the actual numbers are likely much higher since many cases remain undocumented.

African countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Mozambique and Gabon have the lowest IQ scores

In contrast, Asian countries such as Singapore, South Korea, China and Japan have the highest.

Eight human heads have been found in four locations outside the northern Mexican city of Durango

The victims were men believed to have been aged between 25 and 30, the local prosecutor's office said. Police found the heads after anonymous tip-offs, but had not identified the victims or found the bodies, the Durango state prosecutor's office said. The state of Durango has been the scene of clashes between the rival Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels. Police received tip-offs that two human heads had been dumped on three roads out of Durango. Workers cleaning a traffic island found the remaining two on a road leading north to the industrial city of Gomez Palacio. State prosecutors have accused officials at a prison in Gomez Palacio of releasing inmates to carry out drug-related killings. Those included three massacres which left 35 dead in 2010 in neighboring Torreon, in Coahuila state. Prosecutors said guards at the prison had lent inmates weapons and vehicles in order for one of the massacres to be carried out. The inmates then returned to their cells, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the attorney-general's office. He said the prisoners were acting as contract killers for a drugs gang when they killed 17 people at a party in Torreon in Coahuila state earlier in July 2010. Bullets found at the crime scene matched weapons assigned to some of the guards, Najera said. The same group is suspected in two other massacres. The Mexican government says almost 25,000 people have died in drug-related violence since December 2006.

Latino and African-American children are more likely to live in poverty in Colorado

The rate of Colorado children living in poverty increased 50% between 2000 and 2008, compared with a 6% increase nationwide, according to 2010 Kids Count Data Book.

A police officer says a Hispanic convicted of beheading his common-law wife's three children in 2003 showed no remorse after the killings

Brownsville police Officer John Jones said that John Allen Rubio appeared to be "jovial" in the back of Jones' squad car after Rubio's arrest. Rubio has been convicted of murdering the three children in a windowless downtown apartment. He previously was convicted of killing them but a state appeals court overturned that conviction in 2007 because statements from the children's mother were wrongly allowed as evidence. Prosecutors are seeking another death sentence for Rubio.

Jewish congressman caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount on his ferry fare to Fire Island's popular gay haunt called The Pines. Frank was turned down by ticket clerks at the dock in Sayville because he didn't have the required Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID. A witness reports, "Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation." Frank's spokesperson confirmed that his partner, James Ready, asked the ticket office for a regular ticket for himself and a senior ticket for Frank, "but was turned down because Frank didn't have a resident ID."

In California, the largest group infected with potentially deadly whooping cough are Hispanics

Immigration is bringing back to the United States diseases that we thought had been cured a long time ago.

Two black schoolboys, who killed a pensioner in South London, could walk free after serving half of their prison terms

Hamza Lyzai, 15, and Leon Elcock, 16, were sentenced to four and a half years and three and a half years respectively by judge Martin Stephens. However, the ruling by the Central Criminal Court said they would be released after serving half of their sentences, minus the time they have already spent in custody. The two black schoolchildren, members of the so-called "happy slapping" gang attacked retired care worker Ekram Haque, 67, and indiscriminately killed him in front of his three-year-old granddaughter. The man had been walking home when the two youngsters hit him twice on the head. The victim collapsed and his head hit the pavement. He died a week later in hospital from severe brain injury. The two young murderers had also taken part in a happy-slapping attack on a married elderly couple five days before the incident, kicking and stamping on them in their own home. The two killers regularly took part in a happy-slapping spree, filming their violence on strangers under the name "Lane Gang Productions."

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira has been released from police custody in Israel hours after being arrested for encouraging the killing of non-Jews

Police released the head rabbi of a prominent yeshiva hours after arresting him for encouraging to kill non-Jews. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, head of the Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva and author of "The King's Torah," was arrested at his home in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. His book describes how it is possible to kill non-Jews according to halakha (Jewish religious law). Detectives first carried out a search at the yeshiva, where they confiscated 30 copies of the book. The investigation and arrest were carried out on the orders of Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan. The preface of the book states that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews - but the book then apparently describes the context in which it is permitted to do so. According to Shapira, it is permissible to kill a non-Jew who threatens Israel even if the person is classified as a Righteous Gentile. His book says that any gentile who supports war against Israel can also be killed. Killing the children of a leader in order to pressure him, the rabbi continues, is also permissible. In general, according to the book, it is okay to kill children if they "stand in the way - children are often doing this." "They stand in the way of rescue in their presence and they are doing this without wanting to," he writes. "Nonetheless, killing them is allowed because their presence supports murder. There is justification in harming infants if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us. Under such circumstances the blow can be directed at them and not only by targeting adults."

A rabbi has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for fraud

Rabbi Avrum Friesel - who spent more than 11 years on the lam in Israel and Britain - said he was "deeply ashamed" for breaking American civil law, which meant he also broke Jewish religious law. The gray-bearded religious teacher later turned and smiled to about two dozen supporters wearing black velvet skull caps and traditional Hasidic black garb. After being extradited in 2009 from London, Friesel, pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme that defrauded various government programs of tens of millions of dollars during the 1980s. The scam - run by leaders of the Hasidic village of New Square in Rockland County - secured more than $10 million in crooked Pell grants for ineligible students at a Brooklyn seminary, and also stole from the Small Business Administration and the federal Section 8 housing program. Judge Barbara Jones cut Friesel a break from sentencing guidelines that called for up to 41 months in prison. She also ordered him to pay $11 million-plus in restitution. Only about $26,000 of the stolen money has been repaid. Four co-defendants were convicted in 1999, but had their sentences commuted by President Clinton on his last day in office in 2001, shortly after his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, won nearly every vote cast in New Square during her election to the U.S. Senate. The mastermind behind the scheme - Chaim Berger, a Holocaust survivor and founder of New Square - died while serving a six-year prison term in 2004. A seventh defendant, Nathan Adler, remains at large.

Poisonous moonshine has killed at least 17 people and blinded a dozen more in Kenya's largest slum

Police said the home-distilled drink may have contained traces of methanol. Many of those who died were found in their homes in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. Some were taken to hospital but died after arriving there. Alcohol-related deaths are common in Kenya, with hundreds of people dying every year from poisoned liquor often sold in the brewer's home.

A Jamaican-born black man described as a sexual predator masquerading as a guru and healer has been jailed for 10 years for attacking two women

Michael Lyons, who adopted the name Mohan Singh, preyed on women who came to him for spiritual guidance. He had created a tight-knit group described as a 'cult' made up predominantly of female followers. At Wood Green Crown Court, Lyons, of Kilburn, north London, was convicted of one rape and one assault. He was also made the subject of a sexual offenses prevention order which stops him from touching any female he has known for less than six months. He was placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Thank God for Madoff

The American Jewish Congress has lost most of its money because of him.

Related:

Is the Madoff Scandal Paradigmatic?

Oliver Stone says that Jews dominate the media

He also criticizes Israel's influence on American foreign policy and points out that Hitler caused the deaths of more Russians than Jews.

Some 140 million women worldwide have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) and an estimated further two million are at risk every year

Female genital mutilation, also known as cutting, is practiced in 28 African countries. The prevalence rate ranges from 98% of girls in Somalia to 5% in Zaire. It also takes place among ethnic groups in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia and amongst Third World immigrants in Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand. In Sudan, 20%-25% of female infertility has been linked to FGM complications. In Chad, girls have begun to seek FGM without pressure from their immediate family, believing that to be "sewn up" proves they are virginal and clean. The fashion has led to uncircumcised girls being labeled "dirty".

White Christians and the RNC

Patrick Cleburne wonders why the RNC prefers to puts blacks and Jews into positions of power but not white Christians.

Prison inmates released to commit killings in Mexico

Top officials in Mexico have said that authorities at a prison released and armed several inmates to attack a group of people during a birthday celebration in a killing spree that left 17 dead. Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for Mexico's Interior Ministry said authorities allowed a group of inmates to leave the Cereso prison in Gomez Palacio, in Mexico's Durango state, in police vehicles to launch an attack on revelers at a farm in Torreon in the neighboring state of Coahuila. Four top Cereso Gomez Palacio prison workers - including the prison's director - were named as suspects in the investigation and police were able to trace the weapons used in the July 18, 2010 incident to other violent attacks, Najera said. Mexico's interior minister, Francisco Blake, said that the Gomez Palacio prison incident sheds light on Mexico's tenuous security and the "deteriorating state" of Mexico's local law enforcement.

Americans approval of how Barack Obama is handling the nation's economy has dropped to the lowest level of his presidency

Only 42% of the public approves of how Obama is dealing with the economy with 57% disapproving of his performance on the economy. The poll suggests a wide partisan divide on the issue, with nearly eight in 10 Democrats giving the president a thumbs up and nearly nine in 10 Republicans disapproving of Obama's job on the economy. According to the survey, two-thirds of independents disapprove of the president's economic performance and the economy remains the No. 1 issue on the minds of Americans, with nearly half saying it is the most important problem facing the country.

Related:

It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid

Ohio's public schools are losing about half their African American and Hispanic students before they graduate from high school

Only 47.5% of Ohio's black public school seniors graduated on time in 2007. The national average graduation rate for African American students is 53.7%. In Ohio, only 46.4% of Hispanic students graduate. National graduation rates for Hispanic students averaged 55.5%. White, non-Hispanic students' graduation rates averaged 76.6% and Asian students averaged 80.7% nationwide. Overall, black and Latino pupil populations are expected to grow and graduation gaps with whites could widen.

Obama White House backed the release of Islamic Lockerbie bomber

Once again Obama undermines America.

A court in Pakistan has ordered the release of a mentally-ill woman who was charged with desecrating the Koran, the Muslim holy book, in 1996

BBC News:

Zaibun Nisa, 60, was never put on trial and her relatives did not contest her arrest, her lawyer said.

Pakistan's blasphemy law prescribes the death sentence for anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran.

Human rights groups have been campaigning for its repeal.

They say that the legal procedures involved are weighed against those accused of blasphemy.

On Monday, unidentified gunmen killed two brothers accused of blasphemy in the premises of a Pakistani court.

"Zaibun Nisa was declared mentally ill by a medical board soon after her arrest in 1996, but she was still sent to jail," her lawyer, Aftab Ahmad Bajwa, told the media after the court orders on Thursday.

"There was no evidence linking her to the crime," he said.

A police official, requesting anonymity, said she was arrested to defuse the tension - but everyone forgot about her when she was sent to jail.

Her family did not pursue the case probably due to fear of a public backlash, he said.

In Pakistan, people accused of blasphemy and their family members have often been lynched or killed by mobs.

The complainant in the case was Qari Hafeez, a cleric from Lahore who reported to the police that he had found torn pages of the Koran thrown in a drain.

The police lodged a complaint against unknown offenders.

Qari Hafeez told the media in Lahore on Thursday he did not name Zaibun Nisa as an offender in the case.

"Police acted on their own initiative to arrest the woman," he said.

Mr Bajwa discovered her in a "mental sub-jail" a year ago and filed a petition on her behalf in the Lahore High Court.

He said the woman will be sent to a shelter for homeless people as her family cannot be traced.

This just proves that the phrase Islamic civilization is an oxymoron.

African-Americans represent about 13% of the United States population but 40% of the people convicted of felonies every year

One researcher estimates that 17% of African-Americans could be identified through familial searches of DNA criminal databases, compared with only 4% of the white population. This is because crime clusters in families which means that criminals tend to have relatives who are also criminals.

Third World diseases and international travel

Dengue fever - most commonly found in tropical regions such as Africa and Latin America - is now in Florida. How did it get there? An infected visitor may have passed the virus to local mosquitoes, or a mosquito carrying dengue may have arrived on an airplane or cruise ship.

Police Muslim forum in Britain is headed by Islamic extremist

An Islamic extremist who has described al-Qaeda as a "myth" and justified the killing of British troops in Iraq has been chosen as the main link between the Metropolitan Police and the Muslim community. Scotland Yard will now face pressure to renounce Azad Ali, the new chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which is recognized by the Met under a formal written agreement as "the principal body in relation to Muslim community safety and security". The deal says that the Met will "use the MSF as a consultation body to help formulate policy or practice". Ali was the founding chair of the MSF in 2006, but left that job in 2008 and resigned entirely from the group in 2009 after publicity over his extremist comments. Recently, he was quietly reappointed as its chairman. Ali is a senior official of the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which works, in its own words, to create an Islamic state under sharia law in Europe. The IFE and the MSF share the same offices.

A new study finds that African ancestry is linked to triple-negative breast cancer, a more aggressive type of cancer that has fewer treatment options

Researchers found that, among women with breast cancer, 82% of African women were triple negative, 26% of African-Americans were and 16% of white Americans were. Triple negative breast cancer is negative for three specific markers that are used to determine treatment: the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor and HER-2/neu. Researchers found that Ghanaian women were diagnosed at a younger age than American women, and with larger tumors and more advanced cancer. In addition, the Ghanaian women were more likely to test negative for each of the three markers. Prior studies have shown that while African-American women are less likely than white women to develop breast cancer, those who are diagnosed are usually younger and are more likely to die from the disease. These characteristics, including the triple negative disease, are also more common among women with a known hereditary predisposition for breast cancer related to BRCA1 gene mutations. Other studies have also shown a hereditary breast cancer risk associated with racial-ethnic identity - most commonly among Ashkenazi Jewish women.

Men with a long ring finger could be three times more likely to develop prostate cancer

A study of hospital patients found those whose ring finger on the right hand was significantly longer than the index finger were more likely to get the disease than those fingers were roughly same length. A long ring finger is thought to result from higher exposure to the hormone testosterone while in the womb. Previous research has suggested a long ring finger could be beneficial, having been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease and increased fertility.

From 1954 to 2008 African-American 17-year-olds consistently scored at the level of white 14-year-olds on tests of mathematics and reading

A 3+ year gap between blacks and whites at age 17 is equal to an IQ for African-American 17-year-olds of about 85, the same as that found using standardized IQ tests. Black 17-year-olds have not closed the combined mathematics and reading gap on Hispanic 17-year-olds (for many of whom English is a second language), and barely closed it on white 13-year-olds. Black 17-year-olds lag white 17-year olds by over three years. Black achievement scores average 1.6 years behind those of whites in grade 6 (at age 12); 2.4 years in grade 9 (age 15); and 3.3 years in grade 12 (age 18). Black scores even average below those of American Indians, despite that group scoring lower on most socioeconomic indicators. Some researchers believe that the mean African-American IQ might actually be only 78 rather than 85 - in part because, even today, test developers and educational researchers seldom get to examine the very lowest scoring segments of the black population in inner cities.

Only 20% of voters approve of the mosque proposed to be built near Ground Zero, compared with 54% against

Just 20% of U.S. voters favor the building of an Islamic mosque near the Ground Zero site of the World Trade Center in New York City. Fifty-four percent (54%) oppose the planned building of a mosque near where Muslim terrorists brought down the skyscrapers by crashing commercial airliners into them on September 11, 2001. Three thousand people died in the incident and related attacks that day. Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans and 50% of voters not affiliated with either major party oppose building the mosque near the World Trace Center site. Democrats are evenly divided on the question. Only 13% of voters think America’s relationship with the Muslim world will be better a year from now. Thirty percent (30%) say that relationship will get worse, and 48% think it will stay the same.

Muslim youths are rioting again in France

Pajamas Media:

The violence began soon after a Muslim robbed a casino and opened fire as he tried to flee the police, who then shot and killed him. This apparently raised the ire of major elements of the mostly Muslim urban communities who live in poor neighborhoods unassimilated into the greater society. The shooting was seen as an attack on Muslims, rather than an act of justice. Shortly following a speech by an Islamic cleric at a ceremony for the robber, the match was struck. As of now, there are no media reports revealing what the cleric said, if anything, to stoke the flame.

Over fifty cars were set ablaze. Stores were also burned and a tramway stoned. Gang members carrying baseball bats took over buses. When the police arrested one rioter, things got worse. Law enforcement officers were fired upon and targeted with stones and Molotov cocktails. It wasn’t for four days that a level of calm returned.

This is France today. Police must fear that any use of force against a criminal with a Muslim background could be interpreted as an act of brutality and racism that must be responded to with violence.

The country was first forced to recognize the problem in 2005 when riots broke out in 300 towns for three weeks following the deaths of two Muslim teenagers who were electrocuted when they hid in a power station believing they were being chased by police. Fires were set to over 300 buildings and over 9,000 cars. A state of emergency was declared and nearly 3,000 rioters were arrested and 126 police officers were injured. Schools, gyms, stores, churches, and police stations were attacked as the rioters clashed with police. Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal would later boast that he convinced Rupert Murdoch to order Fox News to stop describing the rioters as Muslims.

It didn’t take long for the disgruntled Muslim urbanites to go for a second round. In May 2006, about 100 youths with baseball bats fought with police on the same battlefields from the previous year. The mayor had to flee his home when it was stoned, homemade explosives were tossed at the town hall building, trash cans were in flames, and four cars were blown up. It is not clear what exactly sparked the violence, but two arrests for separate incidents did precede the upheaval.

Then in November 2007, a police officer arrived at a traffic accident involving a police vehicle and motorcycle that killed two teenagers. The officer’s car was set on fire before he could escape. He ended up in the hospital with several broken ribs and a punctured lung from being beaten with baseball bats and iron bars. Clashes with police continued for two days as gang members, armed with shotguns, fired at police as they committed acts of looting and arson. About 130 police officers were injured, 70 cars were burned, and various buildings were attacked including a library and two schools. One police officer described the scene as an “open rebellion” by “urban guerillas.”

These hubs of impoverished, mostly Muslim immigrant communities exist because the French government has designated them as “sensitive urban zones.” These are areas where the police do not have control, effectively making them “no-go zones,” as Dr. Daniel Pipes describes them. Almost five million people live in these areas which are left to themselves, allowing gangs and hostility to authority to breed.

Of course, if life in France is so awful for Muslim immigrants then why don't they just leave?

A black football player has been found guilty of murdering a man on a north-west London estate

Former Millwall striker Gavin Grant, 26, shot dead Leon Labastide on the Stonebridge Park Estate in Harlesden in 2004. Grant, who also played for Wycombe Wanderers and Bradford City, was involved in a series of "tit-for-tat" shootings on the estate. Another black Gareth Downie, 25, from Markby Road, Birmingham, was also found guilty of murdering Labastide. A third black Damian Williams, 32, from Tower Bridge Road in Southwark, was convicted of conspiring with them to murder Labastide. The court heard that Labastide's killing led to the murder of Jahmall Moore in 2005 and Grant's arrest.

Soldiers in Mexico have uncovered a mass grave with at least 18 bodies in the northern state of Nuevo Leon

Security forces said an anonymous tip-off led them to the site almost the size of a football pitch. Investigators believe drug gangs used the remote spot to torture and execute their victims. Recently, two more such graves have been discovered in Nuevo Leon, which is at the center of a violent battle between rival drug gangs. The bodies were found in a pit east of the city of Monterrey. Crime scene investigators are using diggers to search for more bodies. They said they had found two more spots inside the pit where the earth had been disturbed and where they believed more bodies could be buried. Investigators said the layout of the site, with large amounts of blood found along an earthen ramp and traces of gasoline found at the bottom, suggested the victims were led half-way along the pit, where they were tortured and killed. Their bodies were then dumped a further 10 meters along the pit, where they were set alight. More than 200 people have disappeared in the border state in recent years. Nuevo Leon has seen an increase in violence which police say stems from a deadly fight between the Gulf cartel and their former gang of hit-men, the Zetas, for control over lucrative drug routes.

Woman claims that a refusal to hire felons discriminates against African-Americans and Hispanics

Oakland Tribune:

An Oakland woman is the lead plaintiff in a federal class action lawsuit against the Ohio-based First Transit bus company, one of several service providers for East Bay Paratransit, claiming the company's hiring policy barring applicants with felony convictions is discriminatory against blacks and Latinos and violates civil rights and fair employment laws.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S District Court in San Francisco on behalf of 44-year-old Adrienne Hudson, is backed by the nation's largest transit unions. It asserts that, because blacks and Latinos have a higher incarceration rate nationally, employment-selection policies based on criminal background checks — such as First Transit's — have "a disparate impact on African-American and Latino job applicants and employees."

If blacks and Hispanics have a higher incarceration rate than everyone else then maybe they should be discriminated against when it comes to jobs. Personally, I feel that all jobs should only go to law-abiding citizens.

A Saudi man has been chained in a basement apartment for more than six years because his father believes he is possessed by an evil female genie

A Muslim cleric told the father to shackle his son’s arms and legs in chains and read the Koran to him. The father claimed he himself was afflicted by a jinn at the age of nine and suffered for more than four decades until it was exorcised by an Islamic cleric. In 2009, another Saudi family actually took a 'genie' to court, accusing it of theft and harassment.

The AIDS virus has infected 33.4 million people globally with 22.4 million of them living in sub-Saharan Africa

As usual, AIDS activists are demanding that the United States and Europe spend more money fighting a disease that primarily affects drug addicts, homosexuals, prostitutes and the backward peoples of the Third World.

When is the Catholic Church going to wise up and get rid of its gay priests?

Daily Mail:

A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out.

Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine - owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi - filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.

Today there was no immediate comment from the Italian Bishops Conference and the Vatican - which has been rocked by a series of sex scandals involving paedophile priests since the start of the year.

A preview of the Panorama article sent out by email last night added that video footage from the investigation would be made available.

The article describes how the reporter was assisted by a gay 'accomplice' as they 'gate-crashed the wild nights of a number of priests in Rome who live a surprising double-life.'

In it's preview, Panorama added: 'By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but, at night it's off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital's gay scene.'

Panorama described its investigation as 'deeply disturbing' as it detailed how three priests - two Italians and a Frenchman - happily took part in gay events and had casual sex.

And people are surprised that so many priests end up molesting teenage boys.

Black teen may have killed himself and his family

Apparently, he had a habit of starting fires.

Black congressman charged with multiple ethical violations

Charlie Rangel once again lives up to the stereotype of the corrupt African-American politician.

Hispanics, on average, don’t pay all that much attention to the news

Steve Sailer explains why it is pointless to pander to Latinos in return for their votes.

A black emergency medical technician has been charged with a series of armed sexual assaults

An African-American EMT has been charged with a series of sick sex crimes - including an attack on an 11-year-old in an elevator he commandeered with his Fire Department key. Angus Pascall, 33, was nabbed after one victim jotted down the plate number of his getaway car and was linked to five rapes and assaults through DNA and lineups, police said. Honored at FDNY Medal Day in 2007 for saving a patient's life, the emergency medical technician stalked the streets off-duty with a gun or knife, ambushing women as they walked home, officials said. In a July 11 2010 attack, he used a "fireman's service key," which provides access to subway grates and elevators across the city, to corner and sodomize the 11-year-old. Pascall struck recently when he abducted a 20-year-old woman at gunpoint, forced her into his car, and raped her, police said. The victim wrote down the license plate, and cops traced it to a green car that belonged to one of Pascall's friends. After the friend had been busted for driving with a suspended license, the car was seized - and it was Pascall who signed for it from an NYPD lot, police said. He was driving the car when cops busted him near EMS station 39 in East New York. Pascall, who had worked for the FDNY for five years, was picked out of a lineup by three victims. His DNA matched samples taken at all five sex crimes, police said. He was charged with rape, sexual abuse, criminal sex act and child endangerment. Investigators believe Pascall first struck in June 2001, when he raped a 20-year-old woman. He has been on restricted duty since January 2010 for punching his girlfriend and hitting her in the face with a metal toilet paper rack, officials said. A pretrial hearing in that case was scheduled for September 2010. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge in April 2007, according to records. He was suspended for 10 days and then put on an 18-month probationary period, FDNY officials said.

Facial scarring of children in Africa

CNN:

In a dark room, the High Priestess used her ceremonial knife to cut two teardrop scars beneath her baby grandson's eyes. As baby Enitan cried out, the marks ran red with blood.

It took only a few moments, but scarred him for life.

In her small mud-brick home in southwest Nigeria, priestess Ifaponle Ogunjinmi performed the Yoruba tradition of giving tribal marks to the youngest member of her family.

"The tribal mark is to identify the family," Ifaponle said. "Everyone in the family must have it."

Ifaponle rubbed the secretion of a snail on Enitan's cheeks and then pressed dark charcoal dust into the open wounds to stop the bleeding. To finish the ceremony, a chicken was brushed across Enitan's head.

"The snail is for cooling the wounds, like water on fire," Ifaponle said. "And the chicken is to clear the body of all illness. It will be sacrificed in two days."

Yoruba tribal scars have a variety of patterns and meanings.

Most obviously, they appear as a series of cuts and lines across the face to identify a person's family and regional heritage. Others, appearing as lizards or scorpions anywhere below the face, are a form of body art.

But they all have spiritual significance.

Meta Ogunjimni, the child's father, led us into another dark, musty room at the back of his home. Sunlight from a small window cast an eerie light on a dark-red costume in the corner of the room, a shrine to the local goddess of Ifa, surrounded by a variety of bottles and blood-stained ornaments.

The costume consists of a large ornamental mask used in local religious ceremonies. It is decorated with three small wooden faces, each adorned with scars across their cheeks.

"I have inherited these facial marks from my grandfather," said Meta, pointing at the scarred wooden faces on the masquerade, "they help protect me."

Though facial scars can be found across Africa, they are becoming increasingly restricted to people in the rural regions.

The Nigerian government has moved to outlaw the practice, but many states have yet to approve the law. Many human rights organizations argue that the scarring of children is abuse and have often associated the practice with female genital mutilation.

However, regardless of their efforts, facial scars are becoming harder to find for a different reason -- displacement of old ways by Western influence.

"Our grandfathers, who made tribal marks compulsory for everyone have died," Ifaponle said. "In the modern world, many fathers don't allow any marks on their children."

In her arms, Enitan suckled on a bottle of warm milk. He will carry his Yoruba traditions with him for life, but he may well be one of the last.

I am actually a little surprised that CNN published this news story since it makes it quite clear that it is the influence of Westerners that is helping to bring an end to this backward and barbaric custom.

Nearly half of all Americans think President Barack Obama does not deserve re-election in 2012

A Quinnipiac University survey indicates that 48% of the public thinks Obama doesn't deserve a second term in office, with four in ten saying he does deserve to be re-elected. By a 52 to 34 percent margin, Independent voters say the president doesn't deserve re-election. Thirty-six percent of people questioned in the poll say they'd vote for Obama if the next presidential election were held today, with 39% saying they'd cast their ballot for the Republican candidate. Thirteen percent say their vote depends on which Republican would be facing off against Obama and 12% say they are undecided. By a 37 to 27 percent advantage, Independents say they'd vote for the Republican candidate.

Related:

Obama's Poll Numbers Down, Imaginary Racism Up

A Year After Honeymoon Ends, Whites, Men and Independents Desert Obama

Arrest warrants issued for Hispanic couple

Arrest warrants have been issued for a Hispanic couple who may have fled to Mexico after authorities found a dead child in their home, police said. The Bakersfield Police Department found a 3-year-old girl dead and a 4-year-old boy sleeping in the home after responding to a call from the children's aunt. Police want to question Alberto Garcia, 26, and Carla Garcia, 26, about the child's death and check on the well-being of three other children believed to be accompanying them. Police said the Garcias were trying to adopt the young children, who were the natural children of Carla Garcia's sister. Police have issued murder and felony child endangerment warrants and are still working on obtaining an unlawful flight warrant through the FBI. The three children believed to still be with the couple have been identified as Carlos Joe Solvalvarro, 9; Crystal Garcia, 5; and Alberto Garcia Jr., 4. Carlos Solvalvarro, the younger Solvalvarro's father, is worried about the safety of his son while he's with his mother and stepfather.

Jewish congressman ensures that synagogues get more money from taxpayers

More than 25 synagogues in New York City will receive millions in anti-terrorism grants, 40% more than 2009, a Jewish congressman has said. Citing a foiled plot targeting Bronx synagogues in 2009, Representative Anthony Weiner, a Jewish Democrat, claimed that Jewish cultural, nonprofit and religious institutions need extra resources for protection. The need for added protection is "particularly acute in New York, where there's always chatter about the threats posed to communities, heavily Jewish communities," Weiner said. The city is to receive nearly one-third of the US Department of Homeland Security's $26 million allotment for non-profit organizations.

Rabbi is accused of having molested up to five former students

The rabbi, Stanley Z. Levitt, liked to entice his students into taking naked ritual baths with him.

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with an Israeli woman who believed he was Jewish

A court in Jerusalem has made international legal history by jailing Sabbar Kashur, a 30-year-old delivery man from East Jerusalem, for 18 months. He was convicted of "rape by deception" following a criminal trial that has drawn criticism from across Israel. The court heard accusations that Kashur misled the woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, by introducing himself with the traditionally Jewish name during a chance encounter on a street in central Jerusalem in 2008. After striking up a conversation, the two went into a top-floor room of a nearby office-block and engaged in a sexual encounter, after which Kashur left before the woman had a chance to get dressed. It was only later that she discovered Kashur's true racial background, lawyers said. Although conceding that the sex was consensual, district court judge Tzvi Segal concluded that the law had a duty to protect women from "smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price." The judge said that if the woman hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated. A conviction for rape by deception on the grounds of racial misrepresentation is believed to be internationally unprecedented, according to British legal experts. The charge is rarely used in the West. While forced sex by deception is an offense under Israeli law, legal experts say it is a charge used sparingly in cases involving protracted deceit and a promise of marriage. Kashur was originally accused of violent rape and indecent assault, but later accepted the lesser charge under a plea-bargain after prosecutors received evidence suggesting the encounter was consensual. Kashur’s lawyer, Adnan Aladdin, said he had filed an appeal to ensure that the verdict was not considered precedent-setting, adding that otherwise “many men would find themselves in jail.” Israeli legal experts said they found the verdict disquieting. Asked whether his client was the victim of racial discrimination, Aladdin said he "would rather not comment". Others, however, were scathing. Gideon Levy, a leading liberal commentator, said: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman. Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not." Israeli human rights activists said that Kashur's actions reflected the deceits many Palestinians practice when in Israel in an attempt to avoid official and private prejudice because of their background. "It is very well known that Israeli-Palestinians living in Israel disguise themselves," said Leah Tsemel, a human-rights lawyer. "You change your accent and you change your dress because if you look like an Arab you face harassment. If you want to enter a pub, you'd better not look like an Arab and if you want to have sex with an Israeli girl, you had better not look like an Arab."

Related:

Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew

Study finds that having a foreign accent makes you seem less truthful to listeners

The heavier your accent, the less truthful you seem. More evidence that humans evolved to be xenophobic.

"White" baby born to black parents may be albino

Contrary to reports, doctors at the London hospital where Nmachi was born say they have not ruled out the recessive disorder known as albinism which affects skin pigmentation.

There seems to be more genes under recent selection in East Asians and Europeans than in Africans

More genetic evidence that race isn't just a social construct.

Eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined, a new measure of global poverty has found

The Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, have 421 million "poor" people, the study found. This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries, it said. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures a range of "deprivations" at household levels. Developed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UN support, it will feature in the upcoming UNDP Human Development Report. The measure assess a number of "deprivations" in households - from education to health to assets and services.

At least four foreigners have been injured in the South African township of Kya Sands, Johannesburg in xenophobic attacks

Police said they were also investigating cases of looting. Officers had used rubber bullets, an armored vehicle and helicopter to halt the clashes. Since the World Cup finished, there have been fears of a repeat of the deadly xenophobic attacks seen in 2008. At least 62 people were killed in that violence when South Africans blamed foreign workers for taking their homes and jobs. Johannesburg's emergency services said that they had taken "about five people" to hospital after receiving a call about the violence. Police said four people were assaulted. The authorities have been trying to quell possible xenophobic tensions since the World Cup ended - hosted in Africa for the first time. Thousands of temporary workers taken on for the football showpiece have been laid off since it ended. The Zimbabwean government said it had set up temporary shelters at various border posts for Zimbabweans leaving South Africa following threats of attacks on foreign nationals. An estimated three million Zimbabweans are living in South Africa, after fleeing economic meltdown and political violence at home.

Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their ‘unclean’ guide dogs

More evidence that Muslim immigration is a very bad idea.

Doctors are advising football fans who went to the World Cup in South Africa to check their HIV status if they had unprotected sex on their trip

Up to 25,000 England fans recently returned from South Africa, where about six million people have HIV. More than two-thirds of heterosexual men and a quarter of women who contract HIV do so through holiday sex. An awareness campaign is urging those who may have put themselves at risk to visit their local sexual health clinic. Dr Steve Taylor, sexual health and HIV consultant at Heartlands Hospital, said nearly one in five young adults living in South Africa were infected with the virus, and in some areas it could be as high as one in three.

Three black Africans have been jailed after £40,000 from a series of cash van raids in London turned up in South Africa

A car, containing the money, was found on the quayside in Durban, South Africa, in December 2008. Theo Boateng, 47, from Harlow, Essex, Takaidza Hungwe, 43, from Gillingham, Kent, and Ebenezer Gyau, 43, from Enfield, north London, were convicted of conspiracy to rob. They were jailed for a total of 45 years at Snaresbrook Crown Court. The gang committed at least five robberies on security guards in Bethnal Green, East Ham and Stoke Newington between April and December 2008. Hungwe, who is from Zimbabwe, and Boateng, a Ghanaian, were given vital information about the van's routes by Gyau, an "inside man" who worked for G4S. Gyau, who is also from Ghana, also supplied them with special SQS keys which could be used to unlock the cash boxes without the money being splashed with blue dye. Boateng, who was convicted after a trial, was jailed for 18 years while Hungwe and Gyau, who both pleaded guilty, were jailed for 14 and 13 years respectively.

At least eight people have been killed in an attack by machete-wielding assailants near the city of Jos in Nigeria

The unidentified attackers descended on a village on the outskirts of Jos, burning about 10 houses, officials said. Some reports said the dead included the family of a Christian priest. Clashes between rival communities - Hausa Muslims and Berom Christians - have left hundreds dead in 2010. Witnesses said the men attacked the family of Rev Nuhu Dawat in the village of Mazah, 7 miles from the state capital of Jos, killing his wife, two children and a grandson. The priest ran for his life. Deadly riots in 2001, 2008 and 2010 left hundreds of people dead.

An increasing number of children are being accused of witchcraft in Africa, the UN children's agency says

A new Unicef report warns that children accused of being witches - some as young as eight - have been been burned, beaten and even killed as punishment. The agency said there was little it could do about the belief in witchcraft itself, and that it was not trying to eradicate the practice. But it said violence against children was wrong, and that it would do everything it could to stop it. Most of those accused of witchcraft are boys aged between eight to 14 - who often end up being attacked, tortured and sometimes killed. Also, children have had gasoline poured into their eyes or ears as a way of trying to exorcise "evil spirits" that healers believe have possessed them. Unicef's Regional Child Protection officer for West and Central Africa has said that more than 20,000 street children had been accused of witchcraft in the DR Congo capital Kinshasa.

African-American serial killers

African Americans are represented among serial killers at a rate approximately twice one would expect based on the average percentage of African Americans in the population. Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.

After adjusting for inflation, the average salary for people aged 25-34 has fallen 19% over the last 30 years to $35,100

Unemployment for people aged 19-24 stands at 15.3% versus the overall rate of 9.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Obama administration goes after bloggers

A free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result.

Academic ability and racial segregation

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is charging the South Orange-Maplewood School District (SOMSD) of New Jersey's practice of placing students in separate academic levels amounts to racial segregation. Leveling can be described as the separation of students into academic tracks by achievement. SOMSD students are placed in levels based on their scores on the state standardized test, teacher recommendations and grades. At South Orange Middle School, in language arts, 63% of the students in Level 4 classes (the highest academic level) are white. In Level 3, 68% of the students are black. Level 2 classes are overwhelming comprised of black students — 90%, according to district data. The NAACP also wants to see Advanced Placement (AP) classes removed from the curriculum and classes taught at a single level that would ignore differences in academic ability.

ACLU defends a Jew's right to own guns

Sun Sentinel:

The American Civil Liberties Union is petitioning a court to help an 85-year-old man get his guns back from the Broward Sheriff's Office.

Yes, you read that right.

In what may be the first time, the ACLU says, it is advocating on behalf of a gun owner to get his weapons back. And they're doing so free of charge.

That the ACLU, a long-time target of conservatives' scorn, is supporting gun ownership is "a breath of fresh air," said Marion P. Hammer, board member of the National Rifle Association.

"It's all very interesting that the ACLU has now decided that all of the rights are worth defending, and it's a welcome change," said Hammer, a Florida lobbyist for the NRA and its former president.

Is this new alliance a sign of the apocalypse?

Not really, says Fort Lauderdale attorney Barry Butin, a cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Florida's Broward Chapter who is representing the gun owner, Pompano Beach retiree Robert Weinstein.

Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have affirmed the right to maintain guns in the home.

"Under the Second Amendment, he has a right to have his guns in his house. He's not a convicted felon," Butin said. "It is unusual for the ACLU. But the ACLU supports all constitutional rights. We don't pick and choose."

Brandon Hensler, the ACLU of Florida's communications director in Miami, said: "This is the first time I know of in the ACLU's 90-year history that we have advocated on behalf of a citizen to have their weapons returned from law enforcement."

Weinstein, a retired bar and restaurant owner from Hartford, Conn., had his weapons seized in February after Dana, his wife of 61 years, died. He told the Broward Medical Examiner's Office that he wanted to "blow his head off," according to a sheriff deputy's report.

I doubt that the ACLU would be trying to get the guns of a gentile back. In multicultural America, it is one rule for the Jews and another rule for everyone else.

African immigrants are fleeing South Africa for fear of fresh xenophobic violence after the close of the World Cup soccer tournament

A previous spate of anti-foreigner attacks in 2008 cut into investor confidence and another wave could mar the country's image after its successful hosting of the Cup. Almost as soon as Spain defeated the Netherlands in the World Cup final, concerns flared about a relapse into attacks on immigrants from neighboring states competing for scarce jobs. Police shifted from protecting foreign visitors at soccer stadiums to patrolling impoverished townships where immigrants have lived as officials vowed no repeat of the violence two years ago that killed 62 and left more than 100,000 homeless. But many immigrants fear a rapid dissipation of feelings of African unity generated by the first World Cup ever held on the continent, stilling South African accusations that foreigners were stealing jobs at a time of 25% unemployment. The country's liberal immigration policies have led to millions of Africans flocking to its borders where prospects for work as unskilled labor in the continent's biggest economy, albeit few, are far better than what they can find at home. The International Organization for Migration reported that Zimbabwean families were fleeing. Local reports have said foreigners were leaving on buses while one immigrant from Somalia said he was seeking refuge in a densely populated suburb after his store in a township was burned down. One of the difficulties in classifying the motive for attacks on immigrants is the country's alarmingly high crime rates. The poor from South Africa and abroad fall victim to violence daily in the state where murders average 50 per day. Sixteen years since the end of white minority rule, millions of blacks still live in abject poverty and the African National Congress-led government has struggled to deliver on its promise of better living conditions.

Mexican drug gang kills police with car bomb

Members of a northern Mexico drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician and wounding nine people. Federal police said the attack — which may be one of the first uses of an explosive-packed car in Mexico — was in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. Seven officers and two civilians were wounded, said a state police source. He said the compact passenger car had apparently been carrying some kind of explosive or flammable device when it rammed the police pickup trucks. The crash left charred wreckage. Police said Acosta Guerrero, 35, was the "operations leader" of the gang known as La Linea, which works for the Juarez drug cartel. It said he was responsible for at least 25 killings, mainly of rival gang members, and also ordered attacks on police. Drug gangs have previously attacked Mexican soldiers and law enforcement officers with grenades and powerful rifles, but seldom have been known to use explosives. Farther south in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, gunmen killed the nephew of the governor-elect during a botched kidnapping, authorities said. Mario Medina, nephew of Cesar Duarte, was shot in the back as he tried to escape from his assailants in the state capital, also named Chihuahua. More than 1,400 people have been killed in drug violence in Chihuahua state, most of them in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. There have been more than 23,000 killings throughout the country linked to drug violence since late 2006. In the northern state of Nuevo Leon, authorities said that the bodies of four men who had been shot to death were found on a street in the affluent Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia. The victims were bound with tape and blindfolded. Nuevo Leon has seen an increase in drug violence that authorities say stems from a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men. The Gulf cartel has aligned itself with the Sinaloa and La Familia gangs, which are seeking to wipe out the Zetas in northeastern Mexico. In the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, police said they found the body of a man whose head and fingers had been cut off. The body was found in a plastic bag in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and the head was found next to it. In the coastal resort city of Acapulco, also in Guerrero, drug traffickers left a banner on a boulevard accusing local police of protecting Edgar Valdez Villarreal, an enforcer known as "La Barbie." The banner was signed "B.L.," an apparent reference to the remnants of the Beltran Leyva cartel, which split with Villarreal. Also, the Mexican navy reported it found 8 metric tons of a precursor chemical used to make methamphetamines in shipping containers at the Pacific coast seaport of Manzanillo.

The Federal Reserve says that the economy may not recover for 5 or 6 years

The American workforce has shrunk by one million over the past two months as discouraged jobless give up the hunt. Retail sales have fallen for the past two months. New homes sales crashed to 300,000 in May 2010 after tax credits ran out, the lowest since records began in 1963. Mortgage applications have fallen by 42% to a 13-year low since April 2010.

Related:

Ezra Klein Admits: ‘It Won’t Work’

Hispanic violence and asylum

A federal appeals court has said that because there is so much violence against women in Latin America that women from these countries should be given asylum in the United States. Does anyone else have a problem with the idea that the more violent your country, the easier it should be for you to come to the United States?

Black male kills the white mother of his children

One more reason to be against interracial mating.

The failed experiment in multiculturalism known as Belgium

Steve Sailer explains why Belgium should be split up along language lines.

Sleeping sickness, kidney disease and African ancestry

A gene that appears to protect people from sleeping sickness in Africa also appears to make black Americans four times more likely to develop kidney disease. This explains why African-Americans are far more likely than whites to suffer from kidney disease. More than 30% of African Americans carry at least one copy of the risky gene sequences and people with two copies of them had 10 times the usual risk of kidney disease. The gene involved is called APOL1.

Obama and the 2012 Presidential race

Public Policy Polling:

With his approval numbers hitting new lows it's no surprise that Barack Obama's numbers in our monthly look ahead to the 2012 Presidential race are their worst ever this month. He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin at 46. The only person tested he leads is Jan Brewer, who doesn't have particularly high name recognition on the national level at this point.

It's not that any of the Republican candidates are particularly well liked. Only Huckabee has positive favorability numbers at 37/28. Romney's at 32/33, Gingrich at 32/42, Palin at 37/52, and Brewer at 17/20. But with a majority of Americans now disapproving of Obama it's no surprise that a large chunk of them would replace him as President if they had that choice today.

Hat tip, Hot Air!

Mammals with larger brains in relation to body size tend to live longer

A larger brain size permits animals to live longer and thus have more chances to reproduce, which is beneficial to each individual member. This is the compensation for a longer embryonic development needed to generate a larger brain. Species with larger brains have also shown to take longer in reaching sexual maturity, which is in part compensated by a longer reproductive life.

Why the Obama stimulus failed

Conn Carroll:

When the President first began selling his stimulus plan to the American people in November 2008, he promised it would create 2.5 million jobs. But as employment fell at the end of 2008, President-elect Obama increased his employment promise by one million to 3.5 millions jobs created. At the time, employment stood at about 135.1 million. Using these two data points, one can objectively establish the Obama jobs target for December 2010 at 138.6 million. Fast forward to July 2010 and the latest jobs report shows total U.S. employment at almost 130.5 million. This means President Obama’s stimulus has failed to meet its own standard for success by 7.4 million jobs.

Why has the President’s $862 billion stimulus failed by 7.4 million jobs? Because government spending does not stimulate economic growth. All it does is move resources away from one sector of the economy to another. And government has a horrible track record at efficiently allocating resources. All that really happens is that, on net, jobs get destroyed in the transfer process.

Jews and African DNA

African mitochondrial DNA comprises a large proportion of the genetic variation in some Jewish populations, representing 20% in Yemenite Jews and 50% in Ethiopian Jews.

A new analysis by Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd argues that Facebook's success is due in part to "white flight" from MySpace

Statistical analysis of the characteristics of users of online social networks by researchers show that white and Asian teens who belonged to higher socioeconomic strata were attracted to Facebook, while Latino, black and working-class teens tended to opt for MySpace.

A pair of Honduran illegal immigrants raped a 14-year-old girl in Texas

The victim told police that she went to an Independence Day party with her cousin in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, about 40 miles northwest of Austin, where she was left in a room with Anibal Escobar, 19, and Anael Martinez, 22. The two Honduran natives, who told police they are in the United States illegally, made advances at the victim and then raped her. The victim’s cousin discovered her in the bathtub and brought her home. Escobar and Martinez were arrested and face felony charges of aggravated sexual assault. Local investigators contacted Texas Rangers to assist in their investigation and translate, as none of the witnesses at the party or the suspects spoke English.

Nearly six in 10 voters say they lack faith in Obama to make the right decisions for the country

Just 43% of all Americans now say they approve of the job Obama is doing on the economy, while 54% disapprove. Both are the worst, marginally, of his presidency. Even a third of Democrats give him negative marks here. And overall, intensity runs clearly against the president on the issue, with twice as many people rating him strongly negative as strongly positive.

Related:

New poll to Obama: It's the economy, stupid!

African heroin addicts inject others' blood

Heroin users in some African cities have begun engaging in a practice that is so dangerous it is almost unthinkable: they deliberately inject themselves with another addict’s blood in an effort to share the high or stave off the pangs of withdrawal. The practice called flashblood or sometimes flushblood has been reported in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the island of Zanzibar and in Mombasa, Kenya. It puts users at the highest possible risk of contracting AIDS and hepatitis. The use of heroin is growing in some African cities, and experts are warning that flashblood — along with syringe-sharing and other dangerous habits — could fuel a new wave of AIDS infections. Increasing use of heroin in parts of Africa has the potential to magnify the AIDS epidemic. In Tanzania, about 42% of addicts are infected with the HIV virus. The rate is even higher — 64% — among female addicts and since most support themselves through prostitution, they are in two high-risk groups, and their customers are at risk of catching the disease. There have also been reports in East African newspapers of addicts selling their blood and there have been scattered reports of flashblood-type practices in other countries with large numbers of heroin addicts including Pakistan. Until recently, heroin use was uncommon on the continent because most Africans were too poor for traffickers to bother with. But in the last decade, smugglers have begun using port cities like Dar es Salaam and Mombasa and airport cities like Nairobi and Johannesburg as way stations on their routes: law-enforcement officials can often be bribed, and couriers from countries with no history of drug smuggling may escape searches by European border officers. The couriers may be paid in drugs, which they resell. With more local users, more heroin is being sold in Africa. In the last decade, heroin use has increased especially in Kenya and Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria. Brown heroin that must be heated and inhaled — “chasing the dragon” — has given way to water-soluble white heroin that can be injected. Prices have fallen by as much as 90%.

The population of Britain could reach nearly 80 million by the middle of this century

Higher levels of immigration, higher birth rates and people living longer would push the total to 78.8 million by 2051, academics found. The increase - of nearly 20 million since 2001 - would be likely to make Britain the largest country in Europe. The research, by academics at the University of Leeds, also predicts major changes to the ethnic mix of the British population. They found ethnic minorities would make up one in five of the population by mid century, up from fewer than one in ten a decade ago. The study predicts an increase in the number of Indians - nearly doubling from 1,432,000 to 2,672,000. There will also be sharp rises in numbers from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Around 70% of the current population increase is due to immigration - through direct arrivals or children born to them. The current British population of 61,398,000 is an increase of three million since 1997. But even that count may be too low because no one can estimate how many migrants have come into the country illegally.

Having a big head may help protect against the worst ravages of dementia

Researchers found that people with Alzheimer's with the largest craniums had better memory and thinking skills than patients with smaller skulls. The Munich University team believe a larger head means there are greater brain reserves to buffer against dementia-related brain cell death.

Race, sports and the center of gravity

Scientists have tackled one of the taboos of modern sport and believe they have explained why black athletes sweep the medals in sprinting events, while white swimmers dominate in the pool. This disparity in athletic achievement, obvious to Olympic viewers, throws up so many sensitive questions of race and human difference that it is rarely discussed in public. But now two academics have risked controversy by publishing a theory that attempts to explain the contrasting performance of black and white athletes using the laws of locomotion. They argue that black sprinters have a 0.15 second advantage over their white rivals because they tend to have a higher center of gravity, meaning they can fall to the ground more quickly between each stride. Conversely, having a lower then average center of gravity helps white swimmers because their speed is determined by the height they can get above water. More of their upper bodies are above the waterline, so they can generate and ride larger waves. Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University in North Carolina, and Dr Edward Jones of Howard University in Washington, used existing data on the body dimensions of soldiers of various nationalities to determine that black people – or more precisely those of West African origin – have a center of gravity 3% higher than white people. Bejan said the theory completely accounts for the increasing racial segregation of Olympic podiums. The last 25 men’s 100 meter sprint world record holders have been black, while white swimmers have held the 100 meter freestyle world record since 1922. Dr Jones, the co-author of the paper, is an African-American.

Black man arrested after throwing a child into traffic

A horrifying incident was witnessed by people in Oakland, California - including an off-duty police officer. The officer saw a man shake a toddler violently and then hurl her into oncoming traffic. She was run over near Lake Merritt. Witnesses say they are having a tough time recovering from what they saw. Witness Raymond Pisano heard the toddler crying and saw her underneath the car. His wife did what she could for the child. Pisano then saw the child's father running down the street, slamming himself into cars. When police arrived, they used a Taser to subdue him. The child's uncle, Demarion English, says he is having a hard time believing his brother would hurt the little girl, and says his brother has had a rough life. The suspect has been identified as John Taylor. He was booked into jail on several charges, including child endangerment.

Jewish blogger is happy that a famous Jewish child-molester will not be extradited to face justice

Half Sigma:

For some reason, I am glad that Roman Polanski has avoided extradition to the United States. Isn't there some violent criminal within U.S. borders who poses a much greater risk to public safety whom we should be devoting these law enforcement resources to instead?

Actually, most normal people would consider the rape of a 13-year-old girl to be the act of a violent criminal.

Jewish comedian/politician may have benefited from felons voting illegally

The six-month election recount that turned Jewish comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities. That's the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a political watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman. The final recount vote in the race, determined six months after Election Day, showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes - fewer votes than the number of felons whose illegal ballots were counted, according to Minnesota Majority's newly released study, which matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records. Furthermore, the report charges that efforts to get state and federal authorities to act on its findings have been stonewalled.

Genes, IQ and anti-social behavior

Genetic factors explain the link between low IQs and anti-social behavior in boys.

A low IQ increases your risk of a heart attack

Researchers have found that lower intelligence scores were associated with increased rates of cardiovascular disease and total mortality at a level of magnitude greater than most established risk factors.

When poor children are given computers, their performance in school declines

A new study suggests that home computers and Internet access have such a negative effect only on some groups and end up widening achievement gaps between socioeconomic groups. The expansion of broadband service was associated with a pronounced drop in test scores for black students in both reading and math, but no effect on the math scores and little on the reading scores of other students.

Hat tip, Half Sigma!

While blacks continue to be overwhelming supportive of Obama, that popularity doesn't seem to transfer to white Democrats

Blacks don't seem too interested in supporting white Democrats in the mid-term elections.

Hispanic man attacked by blacks on Staten Island

Police are investigating yet another suspected bias attack on Staten Island. City Councilmember Debi Rose says the 30-year-old Mexican man was attacked and beaten by a group of at least six black men. The victim suffered damage to an eye socket. He was treated at a nearby hospital and later released. No arrests have been made. Police say the hate crimes unit has been notified of the case but, because the suspects are black, they have not classified the incident as a hate crime.

South Africa is experiencing an increase in obesity-related conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes

Cerebrovascular diseases, which cause strokes, and diabetes are the fourth- and fifth-leading causes of death in South Africa. Ischemic heart diseases, which can cause artery blockage and heart attacks, are the 10th-leading cause behind HIV, which is ninth-leading killer. The influx of people to urban areas has caused major dietary shifts that are more starchy, sugary, fatty and salty and feature bigger portions. In townships, predominantly black communities located outside cities, being overweight does not carry negative connotations. About 56% of women and 29% of men in South Africa were reported to be overweight or obese, according to a 2003 national survey, echoing similar findings from a 1998 report.

Barbaric punishments in Saudi Arabia

Islamic countries have some of the most nauseating forms of punishment in the world:

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man’s eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment. It was, according to charity Human Rights Watch, the third eye-gouging sentence handed down within a year. HRW was unable to confirm whether any of the gougings had actually taken place. In Noushad’s case, the Indian government made an appeal for clemency. It is not clear if the appeal was successful. The State Department, on its website, still lists eye-gouging as a punishment that can be handed down by courts in Saudia Arabia.

Child slavery is a growing problem in Haiti

CNN:

Child slavery has escalated six months after a devastating earthquake demolished the Haitian capital and left a generation of orphans, according to an advocate who works in the Caribbean nation.

Jean-Robert Cadet is the author of "Restavek," a book on the plight of Haiti's child slaves. The word, derived from a French expression that means "'stay with," refers to children given by a biological parent to a family for the purpose of doing minor housework in exchange for school, food and housing.

"Once children enter the family, they become a domestic slave and they are at the mercy of everyone in the house," Cadet said. "The only thing worse is if the child is a girl, because there is sexual abuse and the risk of pregnancy once she reaches puberty."

If a girl gets pregnant, she is ousted from the house and sent to the countryside.

"About 80 percent of the slaves are girls and they are so vulnerable," according to Cadet.

Corruption at NASA?

Charles Bolden, the first African American to head NASA, is under fire for wanting to cancel a $10 million biofuels project. Supporters of this project include his deputy, Lori Carver. Bolden is being investigated by the NASA inspector general because he consulted on the project’s merits with Marathon Oil, where he served on the board of directors and still holds up to $1 million in company stock. Marathon Oil has competing biofuels technology under development, which some suggest is the reason Bolden quashed the project. Bolden’s actions in light of his relationship to Marathon Oil triggered the investigation. This is not looking good for a man with a storied career.

A break-up of the eurozone would be positive for growth in the region and not the disaster that many think

A report by Capital Economics said that it would be beneficial for both weaker and stronger members because it would bring about the necessary rebalancing of the region's economy. The research consultancy said that since the eurozone began, weaker states such as Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain have been hit by higher cost and price rises than countries like Germany, undermining their ability to compete. Capital Economics said that if Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain left the eurozone, their currencies would depreciate, wiping out much of their lack of competitiveness and enabling growth of exports.

Related:

PIIGS may yet fly, but not while they're trapped in this rickety eurozone

Break-up of eurozone would speed up recovery, thinktank says

Euro Breakup Would Unleash GDP Growth, Capital Economics Says

Much-touted anti-Arizona protests flop as only a few hundred of the usual suspects with “RACIST” signs show up

Calls to protest Arizona’s illegal-immigration law fell flat in Boston as barely 400 people rallied in opposition to Gov. Jan Brewer and her policy to use ID checks to arrest illegals. Organizers had predicted the gathering would draw thousands, but less than 400 people – some of them counter-protesters – showed up for the Copley Square rally.

Women are embracing lesbianism in their thirties

New research indicates that lesbianism is a choice.

Hindus, inter-caste marriages and honor killings

Inter-caste marriages are protected under Indian law, yet social attitudes remain largely resistant. In a 2006 survey cited in a United Nations report, 76% of respondents deemed the practice unacceptable. An overwhelming majority of Hindu couples continue to marry within their castes, and newspapers are filled with marital advertisements in which parents, seeking to arrange a marriage for a son or daughter, specify caste among lists of desired attributes like profession and educational achievement. In India, there has been a resurgence of "honor killings" against couples who breach Hindu marriage traditions. One young Indian woman, Nirupama Pathak, was actually killed by her own mother for wanting to marry a man from a lower Hindu caste. The phenomenon of honor killings is most prevalent in some northern states, especially Haryana, where village caste councils, or khap panchayats, often operate as an extralegal morals police force, issuing edicts against couples who marry outside their caste or who marry within the same village — considered a religious violation since villages are often regarded as extended families. Even as the court system has sought to curb these councils, politicians have hesitated, since the councils often control significant vote blocs in local elections. New cases of killings or harassment appear in the Indian news media almost every week. Recently, the police arrested three men for the honor killings of a couple in New Delhi who had married outside their castes, as well as the murder of a woman who eloped with a man from another caste. Two of the suspects are accused of murdering their sisters, and an uncle of the slain couple spoke of their murders as justifiable.

A protest against “anti-Islamic” European laws attracted less than three dozen people in Cardiff, Wales

Only about 30 men and women gathered for the “standing-still” demonstration at City Hall. The rally was in response to what protesters described as an “ideological attack” on Islam. A number of laws are being proposed across Europe, including Switzerland voting to ban the building of new minarets and France considering a ban on the veil. Belgium’s lower parliament has also voted to ban women from wearing the full Islamic face veil in public. People at the rally were led in prayer before a number of Muslim speakers addressed onlookers through a PA system. Protesters held aloft flags and banners which bore the slogans “Shariah 4 Europe” and “Islam is the answer”. Sajid Idrees led the group in chants before speaking at length. He said: “We are here to show our support for the condemnation of man-made law and to show the fallacy of democracy. This is called an ideological war. We will never bow down to any man-made law. You may only see a minority here but we are the lion cubs. We will not keep quiet.”

Britain's secret eavesdropping center, GCHQ, has been criticized for failing to recruit enough ethnic minority staff to help fight terrorism

Since many terrorists in Britain come from black and/or Muslim backgrounds it should not be too surprising that the British don't want to recruit people who may turn around and give crucial evidence to Islamic terrorists.

Obama finalizes plans for his third vacation since Gulf oil spill crisis began

How many more vacations will Obama take this year?

Somali asylum seekers and British luxury

A family of former asylum-seekers from Somalia are living in a £2.1 million luxury townhouse in one of Britain's most exclusive addresses at a cost to British taxpayers of £8,000 a month. Abdi and Sayruq Nur and their seven children moved into their three-storey property in a fashionable area of London because they didn't like the 'poorer' part of the city they were living in. Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, and his 40-year-old wife, who has never worked, are now living in Kensington despite the fact that they are totally dependent on state benefits. They live close to celebrities, including artist Lucian Freud, singer Damon Albarn and designer Stella McCartney, and their home is just minutes from the fashionable Kensington Place restaurant which was a favorite haunt of the late Princess Diana. The family's new home is believed to be one of the most expensive houses ever paid for by housing benefit, which is administered by local councils but funded by the Department for Work and Pensions.

An Orthodox Jewish singer has been sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison for swiping $36,000 from a devoted fan

Michoel Streicher was convicted by a Manhattan jury of grand larceny in April 2010 for stealing money from Judy Burstein of Washington Heights in 2005. Burstein gave him the cash to buy a holy scroll for her dying father. While Streicher, 50, apologized to his victim, his defense lawyer said he suffers from "severe" psychological problems - and begged the judge to give the father of 11 children a non-jail sentence. Hayes ordered Streicher, an American whose family lives in Israel, behind bars for at least a year.

Does estrogen and testosterone affect intellectual ability?

When examining the test scores of high school students, Steve Sailer found that males were more likely than females to get the maximum score of five on the Physics C Advanced Placement test. This was true for all racial groups whether you were talking about blacks, whites, Asians or Hispanics. This made me wonder if sex hormones might be playing a role in these different scores. While trying to found out more information online, I stumbled on this entry from about 10 years ago:

Women's Mental Skills May Vary During Monthly Cycle

NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters Health) - Hormones may help explain some of the differences in the ways that men and women think, according to a report.

As a rule, women outperform men on tests of verbal skills, while men tend to score better on tests measuring spatial abilities, which include such skills as rotating an object mentally. Some research suggests that the differences may be explained in part by varying levels of hormones in men and women.

In the current study, a group of researchers led by Dr. Markus Hausmann, of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany, set out to determine whether the menstrual cycle has an effect on spatial abilities and if so, what hormones are involved.

In the study, eight women in their 20s and 30s took three different tests of spatial abilities. The women took each type of test on the 2nd and 22nd days of their menstrual cycles, and the researchers measured their hormone levels every 3 days over the course of 6 weeks.

On two of the tests, the women's scores at different times during their cycles did not differ significantly, the authors report in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.

But the investigators did detect significant differences in the scores on one test, which measured the ability to recognize rotated versions of a figure. With the exception of one woman, all participants scored higher on the test during the menstrual phase of their cycles, the report indicates.

Hormone levels fluctuate during a woman's cycle, and Hausmann's team found that both testosterone and estrogen were related to the women's spatial scores, the researchers report. Higher levels of estrogen were linked to lower scores, while higher concentrations of testosterone were linked to higher scores.

"We conclude that spatial performance is sensitive to hormonal fluctuations over the menstrual cycle and that different aspects of spatial abilities are related to different hormones or hormone combinations," the authors write.

SOURCE: Behavioral Neuroscience 2000;114:1245-1250.

In 2007, at least 14,093 white women were raped by black men

In the same year, between zero and ten black women were raped by white men. There were approximately 8310 gang rapes in 2007 and 2/3 were committed by blacks.

Teaching math over the decades

1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's OK.)

6. Teaching Math In 2010
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuanto dinero ha hecho?