US, Turkey Announce $4 Billion Arms Deal

(US, Turkey Announce $4 Billion Arms Deal)
(By: Meir Halevi Siegel, JP)
(Published: July 31st, 2014)
(Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh and Erdogan. Haniyeh is the terrorist on the left.)

It’s been a great month for US arms manufacturers: Just two weeks after the United States and Qatar – “the world’s largest funder of terror”, according to former President Shimon Peres – signed an $11 billion arms deal, the Israel Defense website said Thursday that Washington has inked another multi-billion dollar deal for American firms, this time to provide Turkey with an advanced air defense system.

The deal comes at a time when Turkey appears to have re-defined its identity as a Muslim-majority democracy, as well as its role in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Although the Turkish republic, founded by Kamel Attaturk in 1923, has existed as a democracy for 90 years (with three military coups to restore democracy when the country teetered, in 1960, 1971 and 1980), Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has directed the country towards an Islamist path since coming to power in 2002.

The evidence of Erdogan’s effort to Islamize the Attaturk Republic has been clear for years: After being banned from Turkish politics for five years in the late 1990s and early 2000s for promoting anti-Israel-democratic ideas, he has used his elections to redefine Turkish politics and international relations.

He has purged both the judiciary and the military, giving many Turks and international observers the clear feeling that he is looking to solidify a one-party, one-leader system. More journalists are in Turkish jails today than any other country on earth – not because it is formally illegal to criticise Erdogan or the government in the local press, but rather because journalists and editors have learned to self-censor if they want to survive. Under Erdogan’s leadership the country has moved steadily away from the democratic republic envisioned by Attaturk and steadily towards the dark Islamic republic envisioned by enlightened groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Internationally, too, Erdogan has redefined Turkey’s interests. Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey has completely abandoned a thriving relationship with Israel in favor of relationships with some of the darkest regimes on the planet: Iran, Hamas, Syria, Libya. Even Turkey’s relationship with the United States has not been immune: In mid-July he said he “no longer speaks” to President Barack Obama, in protest of the latter’s supposed lack of support for Palestinians in Gaza.

The $4 billion missile defense deal is significant not only in light of Erdogan’s Islamist leanings, but also because of Turkey’s wider geo-political stance. The deal, which has been delayed four times over the past year, mainly due to Erdogan’s domestic political needs as he completes his term as prime minister and runs for president, is also relevant because American and European companies have been competing for the air defense contracts against competitors from Russia and China – the geo-political equivalent of a slap in the face to Washington and Brussels.

In that sense, then, the deal stands to re-cement Ankara’s standing in the West, and also to reassure President Obama and European leaders that Turkey has not ‘changed sides’ – at least, not completely.

Finally, the deal is critical as the United States heads to mid-term elections amidst signs of economic slowdown. Last month, Raytheon-Lockheed announced layoffs in Rhode Island and Massachussetts. Furthermore, many large weapons-producing states, such as Alabama, are not naturally Democratic support bases. Taken together, inking the Turkey deal was a clear economic interest for the United States, and a political interest for President Obama and the Democratic Party.

All of which suggests, however, that the choice of short-term financial gain over longer-term political interests is unstable at best. For Prime Minister Erdogan, Turkey’s path is clear. Nothing illustrates this better than Erdogan’s outrageous comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany and Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked to Hitler. Especially in light of the current deal, the silence from the administration on growing state anti-Semitism in Turkey is deafening.

But President Obama’s silence on Turkish anti-Semitism cannot change the fact that the administration recognises both the possibility that Turkey could bolt the NATO stable, and also that that move would be a political earthquake. In that light, the current move is a desperate attempt to curry favor with an shaky ally on the way out, at the expense of a solid one that is firmly in the American orbit.

Manhattan Gas Explosion: Greek Musician Andreas Panagopoulos Among Missing; 4 Dead

(Greek) At least four people have been killed, more than 20 others have been injured, while there are still missing residents including Greek Andreas Panagopoulos, after a massive explosion leveled two apartment buildings in New York City’s East Harlem. The sudden explosion was reportedly caused by a gas leak. A resident called Consolidated Edison at 9:13 a.m. on Wednesday and reported a detectable gas smell around the two buildings by 116th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem. After 20 minutes the buildings were gone, leveled by a tremendous explosion whose tremors could be felt more than a mile away. Mayor Bill de Blasio said a number of people are missing, although some may not have been inside the buildings when the blast occurred Wednesday. “This is a tragedy of the worst kind because there was no indication in time to save people,” said de Blasio. Greek musician and entrepreneur Andreas Panagopoulos was possibly asleep at the time of the explosion. Recently he started working from home for an internet project he wanted to launch soon. Panagopoulos, 42, was living in the building for more than a decade together with his wife Lisbeth Perez who had left their apartment for work early morning. Earlier ANA-MPA reported that Panagopoulos had been found among the injured at a New York hospital something that his friends and family deny. Until this story was published there was no sign of Andreas Panagopoulos at three hospitals, leaving his family and friends still searching, hoping to find him alive. “We don’t know anything, unfortunately nobody has heard from him and our search in the hospitals has returned no results. We are still visiting more hospitals,” said Evangelos Alkimos of New York, a close friend and musician who had lived for a period of time in the building that collapsed, in the apartment under Panagopoulos’. “I stayed with him for a few days and then I moved in temporarily to an apartment under his. Soon after I found a better one in another area and I moved out,” said Alkimos. The Mayor’s office said nine occupants of the building remain unaccounted for, according to Fire Marshals and the NYPD. Searches of the street have been completed and did not produce any additional victims, the mayor’s office said. “Our hearts go out to all the families involved,” de Blasio said at a news conference earlier Wednesday. “We are spending every effort to locate each and every loved one.” The Red Cross center for those affected is based out of PS 57: E. 115th Street between 3rd Avenue and Lexington Avenue. This is a developing story, check back for updates

Why are white males implicated in mass killings?

The answer is one word: Prejudice.

(Elliot Rodger was not against feminism.
He was not a Men's Rights Activist,
He killed four men and two women
and wrote a manifesto that
never had any problem with feminism at all)

(The group most disproportionately represented on the Mother Jones chart is Americans of Asian descent. While only 6 percent of the population, they have been 15 percent of the 31-year period’s last 20 mass killers, 13 percent of the last 30, and 9 percent of the last 66. This is quite interesting, too, since Americans of Asian descent have a very low crime rate in general.) Of the last 20 mass killings of that period, 9 were perpetrated by non-whites. That would be 45 percent, which exceeds non-whites’ 37 percent share of the population. Of the last 30 mass killings, 11 were committed by non-whites — right at the 37 percent mark. And what if we go all the way back to 1982? We then have 66 mass killings in which the races of the perpetrators were known, and 22 of them, or one-third, were at the hands of non-whites. Note here that America’s demographics have been changing, with non-whites comprising only about 20 percent of the population in 1982; thus, if we consider an approximate average non-white population of 28.5 percent during the 31-year period in question, it appears that, again, mass murderers are slightly disproportionately non-white. In other words, there is no evidence whatsoever that mass killings are a characteristically white phenomenon. 

Walking

(Man In Glass House Dress In Basement)

Vincent Mentzel

“@AMStordiau Toen(1969) waren Feijenoord AJAXsupporters keurige vaders:-) @AMStordiau pic.twitter.com/RwIiziPBRk”Jan kijkt nog steeds zo :-)”LOL
— vincent mentzel (@VincentMentzel) March 2, 2014

Muslim Rapper Who Sang About Wanting to Suicide Bomb, Gets Suicide Bombed

“I light the bomb in the middle of the crowd, I press the button” Cuspert sings. “Right in the city centre or in the subway, press the button, al-Jannah, al-Jannah”

Cuspert repeatedly sings: “I long for for death and can not wait for it, armed with bombs and grenades”

Sometimes there is justice!

Denis Mamadou Cuspert, who rapped under the name Deso Dogg but took on the name Abu Talha al-Almani in Syria, was reported to have been killed in a suicide attack Sunday in an eastern province.

He was a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and was reportedly killed in a double suicide bombing carried out by Al-Nusra Front, a rival jihadist group that is Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate.

MyBlackBookMag

(@MyBlackBookMag)

Next time some feminist or LGBT type gets your account suspended on twitter... think about this:

Transgender female Twitter engineer, 32, is charged with raping her estranged wife the day after serving her with divorce papers (McCallum has been listed as one of the top ten most important LGBT people in tech and she has spoken at length about her transition after being born biologically male.) She and her wife, who has not been named due to the nature of the crime, had been married for more than six years. The San Francisco Examiner reports that the 32-year-old engineer and her wife were separated but were still having sexual relations by the time of the alleged crime. McCallum had served her wife with divorce papers on January 25 but they met up at some point that evening. At 2am on January 26, police responded to a sex assault call at a residence in the Mission district of San Francisco. McCallum's wife accused her of rape, but McCallum has denied any wrongdoing. According to the San Francisco police, the state of California classifies rape as penial on vaginal assault. They were not able to reveal any of the specific details about the suspect or the victim, but said that in order for a rape to have occurred, it would have to meet the aforementioned criteria.

Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree from Ayaan Hirsi Ali due to her criticism of Islam.

(The Wall Street Journal has published the speech that Ms. Hirsi Ali planned to give.)

You deserve better memories than 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. And you are not the only ones. In Syria, at least 120,000 people have been killed, not simply in battle, but in wholesale massacres, in a civil war that is increasingly waged across a sectarian divide.

Violence is escalating in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Libya, in Egypt. And far more than was the case when you were born, organized violence in the world today is disproportionately concentrated in the Muslim world.

Another striking feature of the countries I have just named, and of the Middle East generally, is that violence against women is also increasing. In Saudi Arabia, there has been a noticeable rise in the practice of female genital mutilation. In Egypt, 99% of women report being sexually harassed and up to 80 sexual assaults occur in a single day.

Especially troubling is the way the status of women as second-class citizens is being cemented in legislation. In Iraq, a law is being proposed that lowers to 9 the legal age at which a girl can be forced into marriage. That same law would give a husband the right to deny his wife permission to leave the house.

Sadly, the list could go on. I hope I speak for many when I say that this is not the world that my generation meant to bequeath yours. When you were born, the West was jubilant, having defeated Soviet communism. An international coalition had forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The next mission for American armed forces would be famine relief in my homeland of Somalia. There was no Department of Homeland Security, and few Americans talked about terrorism.

Two decades ago, not even the bleakest pessimist would have anticipated all that has gone wrong in the part of world where I grew up. After so many victories for feminism in the West, no one would have predicted that women's basic human rights would actually be reduced in so many countries as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.

Today, however, I am going to predict a better future, because I believe that the pendulum has swung almost as far as it possibly can in the wrong direction.

When I see millions of women in Afghanistan defying threats from the Taliban and lining up to vote; when I see women in Saudi Arabia defying an absurd ban on female driving; and when I see Tunisian women celebrating the conviction of a group of policemen for a heinous gang rape, I feel more optimistic than I did a few years ago. The misnamed Arab Spring has been a revolution full of disappointments. But I believe it has created an opportunity for traditional forms of authority—including patriarchal authority—to be challenged, and even for the religious justifications for the oppression of women to be questioned.

Yet for that opportunity to be fulfilled, we in the West must provide the right kind of encouragement. Just as the city of Boston was once the cradle of a new ideal of liberty, we need to return to our roots by becoming once again a beacon of free thought and civility for the 21st century. When there is injustice, we need to speak out, not simply with condemnation, but with concrete actions.

Exonerated Father Awarded $9 Million after 20 Years in Prison on False Sex Abuse Charges

Clyde Spencer, center, and his children,
Kathryn Tetz and Matthew Spencer,
who testified in defense of their father.

(A father) who spent 20 years in prison based on sex abuse evidence fabricated by two former Clark County, WA, sheriff’s detectives was awarded $9 million by a federal court jury that ruled that the authorities violated his constitutional right to due process.
The jury verdict in the civil rights case was the latest in a series of exonerations for former Vancouver, WA, policeman Clyde Ray Spencer. He had been sentenced in 1985 to two life terms plus 14 years on false charges that he sexually abused his daughter Katie Spencer Tetz, then age 5, son Matt Spencer, then age 9, and stepson Matt Hansen, then age 5. The Governor commuted Spencer’s sentence in 2004, and his conviction was subsequently thrown out.
Sex and ambition “This case is so incredibly simple,” attorney Kathleen Zellner told the jury during opening statements. “It has to do with the deliberate fabrication of evidence” by former sheriff’s detective Sharon Krause and her boss, former detective sergeant Michael Davidson. Krauss and Davidson were both held liable. “The motivation was sex an ambition.” Zellner, of Downers Grove, IL, is a member of the National Trial Lawyers.
Spencer asserted that the false evidence was a moving force in his entering an “Alford” or no contest plea to the charges. It is treated as a guilty plea, but maintains a person’s innocence while acknowledging that a jury could find him guilty. While in prison Spencer wrote letters saying he was not guilty of molesting his children and stepson.
After 13 days of testimony in court in Tacoma, WA, from 25 witnesses — several key factors led to the on February 3 jury verdict:
Spencer’s wife, who called policed about the abuse claims, was secretly having an affair with Sgt. Davidson, who led the investigation of Spencer. This was not revealed until after Spencer was in prison. Spencer’s natural children Matt Spencer and Katie Tetz testified that they were never abused. The stepson maintained that we was abused. However, he has a long criminal record for crimes including burglary and forgery. The authorities reduced his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Spencer. The detectives concealed medical exams showing that Spencer’s son and daughter were not abused. They also fabricated polygraph test results to make it look as if Spencer was lying when questioned about the abuse claims. Deputy prosecutor James Peters made a video showing that he coaxed Spencer’s daughter to say her father abused her. The video, which undermines the prosecution’s case, was not found until 2009 in Det. Krause’s garage. Det. Krause held unorthodox meetings with the Spencer children, interviewing them in unrecorded sessions, buying them gifts and candy. She told the children their father was “sick” and that they they could heal him by accusing him of sexual crimes. Attorney Zellner charged that Det. Krause was motivated by advancing her career, and that after she started working in the field the conviction rate in child abuse cases rose by 800%. She had been a hotel clerk and met police officers who came to the hotel bar. She joined the Clark County Sheriff’s Department and became a detective investigating child sex abuse, even though she had no training in the subject area.
“Justice was served, even though it took 30 years,” Zellner said. “We were able to prove they framed him. We’ve proven the evidence was fabricated. And, after 30 years, that’s remarkable. Justice is alive and well in Washington.”

Black Book sent you an invitation

MyBlackBookMag.com

Hierarchical differences: Female academics less likely to cross rank in collaboration, study finds

women were supposed to be the cooperative sex... like usual the feminists were either lying or just wrong

(h/t CHSommers)Women of different social or professional “ranks” within academic departments collaborate less than men do, according to a new Harvard study, suggesting that female full professors prefer to work on academic papers with other female full professors rather than assistant professors. When the pool was narrowed to women of the same rank, collaboration was equal to that of men.

The study’s authors are Joyce Benenson, an associate of Harvard’s Human Evolutionary Biology Department and a professor of psychology at Emmanuel College; Richard Wrangham, the Ruth B. Moore Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology; and Henry Markovits, a professor of psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal. The work was described in a paper published March 3 in Current Biology.

Benenson and Wrangham have been pursuing parallel lines of research over a number of years with both children and chimpanzees. Their studies demonstrate that males are more likely to interact in large groups consisting of various ranks, whereas females form one-on-one, exclusive relationships with equals. It seemed that the findings would translate into different forms of cooperation in actual organizations, but the idea had never been tested because of the difficulty involved in establishing objective measures of cooperation.

“The question we wanted to examine was: Do men or women cooperate differently with members of their own sex?” Wrangham said. “The conventional wisdom is that women cooperate more easily, but when you look at how armies or sports teams function, there is evidence that men are better at cooperating in some ways.”

Benenson and Wrangham settled on co-authored academic papers as an objective measure of cooperation, and began by identifying 50 institutions from across the United States and Canada with at least two male and female full professors and two male and female assistant professors in their psychology departments. Researchers then identified all articles written by senior faculty from 2008 to 2012, and recorded how often within the same department senior faculty worked with other senior faculty of the same sex, and how often senior faculty worked with junior faculty of the same sex.

While the research focused on the world of higher education, lead author Benenson said she first became interested in differences between how men and women cooperate during her work with children.

“When I studied young children, I noticed that boys were typically interacting in groups, and girls tended to focus on one-on-one relationships,” said Benenson, who discusses these findings in her new book, “Warriors and Worriers.”

“There is even evidence that these differences exist in 6-month-olds — but you can see it with the naked eye by about 5 or 6 years old, where boys form these large, loose groups, and girls tend to pair off into more intense, close friendships.”

What makes the differences particularly provocative, Benenson said, is that chimpanzees organize their relationships in nearly identical ways.

“Chimpanzee males usually have another individual they’re very close with, and they may constantly battle for dominance, but they also have a larger, loose group of allies,” Benenson said. “When it comes to defeating other groups, everybody bands together. I would argue that females don’t have that biological inclination, and they don’t have the practice.”

That’s not to suggest women are inherently flawed when it comes to cooperation.

In fact, Benenson said, women are often thought of as being more egalitarian than men. “But there’s a flip side no one thinks about, which is: What happens when they’re with someone who isn’t the same rank?”

While the study offers evidence that women, in some situations, may not collaborate as often as men, Wrangham made it a point to emphasize the host of unanswered questions behind those differences.

“There is cross-cultural evidence for this phenomenon, you see it in early development, and in one of our closest relatives,” said Wrangham. “That pushes us into thinking that there is a strong biological influence here, but we would never suggest this is impervious to environmental and cultural influences as well.

“Nevertheless these are the kinds of fascinating questions about fundamental sex differences in social relationships that would be tremendously important to recognize if you want to change the way in which women’s access to higher ranks happens,” he added. “What we need to know, now that we have recognized these patterns, is what can we do to ameliorate them?”

BDS Failed

(England’s Supreme Court ruling a few weeks ago that the economic activity of businesses located over the Green Line does not violate international law. A court in France issued a similar ruling and at the same time, two European Union leaders – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Parliament President Martin Schulz – announced their opposition to the boycott of Israel.)

lolz @medeabenjamin for getting taken like a infidel. take the jihad. tolerate it! you are now war booty

(EOZ)(Code Pink, the Israel-hating uber-leftist organization, was planning a publicity stunt to try to get into Gaza for "International Women's Day." Of course, they knew quite well that it was a stunt and there was very little chance that they would actually  get into Gaza.

We will meet in Cairo on March 5. We will attempt to enter Gaza on March 6 and return from Gaza on March 12, 2014. Due to the political and security issues in Egypt, there are no guarantees that we will be able to get into Gaza. If we get to Gaza, we will spend our time meeting with women's groups, human rights leaders, fisherfolk, farmers, UN representatives, youth activists and journalists. If we do not get into Gaza, we will make your time in Cairo very worthwhile.

(That webpage, by the way, was created using Israeli webpage software from WiX.)

Then, early today, co-founder Medea Benjamin tweeted:)

I'm being held in a jail at Cairo airport!!!
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) March 4, 2014

Only food for 5 women is dirty stale bread and dirty water pic.twitter.com/6YFwXm4KL0
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) March 4, 2014

German Foreign Minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier meets with leader of the purging of Jews in Ukraine

OLEG TYAGNIBOK LEADER OF THE SVOBODA PARTY (Faces) In recent elections the radical right party won 41 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament (10.44%% of the popular vote). Tyagnibok has called for purges of the approximately 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine and has demanded that Ukraine be liberated from what he calls, the “Muscovite Jewish Mafia.”
To: The Independent
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2014 7:01 PM
Subject: disastrous consensus on Ukraine
Sir, So German Foreign Minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, who sees democratic sovereigntists in Western Europe as “threats to peace” is pleased to shake hands with openly fascist and nationalistic leaders in the Ukraine!
One of the parties (Swoboda), called to meetings in the German embassy in Kiev with Steinmeier was described by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre as one of the most anti-semitic in the world.
http://kyivscoop.blogspot.com/2014/01/ukrainian-jewish-leader-on-svoboda.html
http://www.wiesenthal.com/atf/cf/%7B54d385e6-f1b9-4e9f-8e94-890c3e6dd277%7D/TT_2012_3.PDF

Saudi Arabia confiscates dangerous soccer balls (with Israeli flag)

Arabic media are reporting that a soccer ball has been confiscated by Saudi authorities from a shop in Dammam.The reason? Well, it's obvious:

The Saudi Ministry of Trade and Industry responded quickly on Sunday to a citizen complaint via Twitter about the sale of balls bearing the six-pointed star that symbolizes the flag of Israel. Teams of of the Inspection and Control division at the Ministry confiscated the balls from the store located in Dammam."Activists' thanked the ministry for responding so quickly to what must apparently have been considered a threat to public mental health. They are continuing their investigation of how such a horrendous thing could have happened. A few years back, Muslims complained about a flag on soccer balls as well - but not the Israeli flag: (EOZ)

Lesbianism is the “highest state of feminism” says Dustin Hoffman Lookalike contest winner

(Roses are red, Violets are blue. The heteronormative patriarchy Is raping you.)

[University of California-Santa Cruz Women's Studies] Professor Bettina Aptheker is the daughter of a famous American Communist, the late Herbert Aptheker . . .

Professor Bettina Aptheker is by her own proud admission both a Communist and a self-described “lesbian activist.” . . . Aptheker’scourse syllabus describes lesbianism as the “highest state of feminism” . . . In other words, change in sexual orientation is an inevitable final stage in the development of the socially conscious individual.

Allison Jaggar is professor of philosophy and a former chair of the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder . . . Integrating Marxism and feminist theory, Jaggar describes herself as a “socialist feminist” and “activist,” who seeks to combat “the male-dominant structure of everyday life.” . . .

“The political economy of socialist feminism,” writes Jaggar, “establishes that, in contemporary society, women suffer a special form of exploitation and expression. . . . The distinctive social experience of women generates insights that are incompatible with men’s interpretations of reality . . . The validity of these insights . . . must be tested in political struggle . . .”(h/t Hot Furry Pussy)

Major new study from Cambridge University just out: male and female brains are different.PC feminists won't like it

(Cambridge)(h/t CHSummers) New study examines thousands of brains from two decades of research to reveal differences between male and female brain structure.

For the first time we can look across the vast literature and confirm that brain size and structure are different in males and females

Amber Ruigrok

Reviewing over 20 years of neuroscience research into sex differences in brain structure, a Cambridge University team has conducted the first meta-analysis of the evidence, published this week in the prestigious journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 

The team, led by doctoral candidate Amber Ruigrok and Professors John Suckling and Simon Baron-Cohen in the Department of Psychiatry, performed a quantitative review of the brain imaging literature testing overall sex differences in total and regional brain volumes. They searched all articles published between 1990 and 2013. A total of 126 articles were included in the study, covering brains from individuals as young as birth to 80 years old.

They found that males on average have larger total brain volumes than women (by 8-13%). On average, males had larger absolute volumes than females in the intracranial space (12%; >14,000 brains), total brain (11%; 2,523 brains), cerebrum (10%; 1,851 brains), grey matter (9%; 7,934 brains), white matter (13%; 7,515 brains), regions filled with cerebrospinal fluid (11.5%; 4,484 brains), and cerebellum (9%; 1,842 brains). Looking more closely, differences in volume between the sexes were located in several regions. These included parts of the limbic system, and the language system.

Specifically, males on average had larger volumes and higher tissue densities in the left amygdala, hippocampus, insular cortex, putamen; higher densities in the right VI lobe of the cerebellum and in the left claustrum; and larger volumes in the bilateral anterior parahippocampal gyri, posterior cingulate gyri, precuneus, temporal poles, and cerebellum, areas in the left posterior and anterior cingulate gyri, and in the right amygdala, hippocampus, and putamen.

By contrast, females on average had higher density in the left frontal pole, and larger volumes in the right frontal pole, inferior and middle frontal gyri, pars triangularis, planum temporale/parietal operculum, anterior cingulate gyrus, insular cortex, and Heschl’s gyrus; bilateral thalami and precuneus; the left parahippocampal gyrus, and lateral occipital cortex.

The results highlight an asymmetric effect of sex on the developing brain. Amber Ruigrok, who carried out the study as part of her PhD, said: “For the first time we can look across the vast literature and confirm that brain size and structure are different in males and females. We should no longer ignore sex in neuroscience research, especially when investigating psychiatric conditions that are more prevalent in either males or females.”

Professor Suckling added: “The sex differences in the limbic system include areas often implicated in psychiatric conditions with biased sex ratios such as autism, schizophrenia, and depression. This new study may therefore help us understand not just typical sex differences but also sex-linked psychiatric conditions. It is important to note that we only investigated sex differences in brain structure, so we cannot infer anything about how this relates to behaviour or brain function. Integrating across different levels will be an important goal for future research.”

Professor Baron-Cohen commented: “Although these very clear sex differences in brain structure may reflect an environmental or social factor, from other studies we know that biological influences are also important, including prenatal sex steroid hormones (such as foetal testosterone) as well as sex chromosome effects. Such influences need to be teased out, one by one.”

Dr Meng-Chuan Lai, another member of the team, noted: “The advantage of conducting a meta-analysis is that we can summarise the best knowledge from a vast, heterogeneous literature, with a very large sample size. However, we found a bias in the existing literature towards the use of volunteers over 18 years old, probably because this is the easiest age group to recruit and to brain scan. We need more research exploring brain development over the entire lifespan, especially in the early, formative years”.

This study was supported by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Autism Research Trust, the Dr Hendrik Müller Vaderlandsch Fonds, the Carolus Magnus Fonds under the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, and the Waterloo Foundation. It was conducted in association with the NIHR CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/males-and-females-differ-in-specific-brain-structures#sthash.0Gn3QE4N.dpuf)

Muslim Brotherhood in US Group Got $10,000 in Farm Subsidies

hmmm I wonder if Monsanto had anything to do with this?

(An Islamic organization once listed by the Justice Department as a co-conspirator in a high-profile terror case is among many groups that have received thousands in federal farm subsidies, without producing any crops.

Records show that since 1998, the North American Islamic Trust has received over $10,000 across 34 separate taxpayer-funded programs. NAIT’s two relatively small land plots are tax-zoned as “agricultural” — but they aren’t developed.

The group has been able to obtain farm subsidies legally without producing any crops because it is a nonprofit “charity group” landowner — so it received subsidies on top of being tax-exempt.

The North American Islamic Trust’s history is complicated — as the offshoot of the Muslim Students Association and its financial arm, NAIT was founded in 1973 by Middle Eastern-born college students. The majority of NAIT’s founders were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the group continues to be backed by Saudi Arabia. NAIT uses Shariah-approved investing with its own company, Allied Asset Advisors, to buy and pool mosques and community centers. Former Allied Asset Advisor board member, Jamal Said, preached the most conservative forms of Islam and was specifically named as a co-conspirator in the terror-funding case.

In the Holy Land Foundation case of 2008, which prosecuted investors charged with sending  money to Hamas, NAIT was named by U.S. federal prosecutors as a co-conspirator and an entity that is or was “a member of the Muslim Brotherhood” (the parent organization of Hamas).

The Holy Land Foundation’s five accused individuals were sentenced for funneling $12.4 million to the terror group, which controls the Gaza Strip and is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. NAIT never was formally charged in the case.

Every farm subsidy to the North American Islamic Trust has been received at the mailing address of the Islamic Center of Central Missouri Mosque, records show. The USDA lists the “farm location” as Boone County, Mo. But aerial searches of the “agricultural” properties owned by the North American Islamic Trust reveal that the plots are undeveloped, tree-dotted land combined to form just over 100 acres valued at about $59,000.)

Obama's half-brother wearing Hamas scarf that boasts 'Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE COMING'

@Criticalanalyst

(Pictured: Obama's half-brother wearing Hamas scarf that boasts 'Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE COMING'. Malik Obama runs the Barack H. Obama foundation and was the Best Man at the president's wedding He appeared at the 2010 Orphans Development Fund conference wearing a Hamas 'keffiyeh' scarf with well-known Palestinian slogans printed on it. The sayings included 'Jerusalem is ours – WE ARE COMING' and 'From the river to the sea,' a statement that suggests Israel doesn't exist. The president has been tight-lipped about his relationship with Malik, who told GQ in 2013 that the two are closer than Americans think)

44.9 % of European Muslims Surveyed Think Jews Can't Be Trusted

(The survey was conducted in 6 EU states, Germany, Sweden, Austria, France, The Netherlands and Belgium. Full survey here, additional survey links here.

h/t TON/Cat)

Obama's high school pot dealer who he thanked for the 'good times' was beaten to death with a hammer by his gay lover

(Raymond Boyer, known as 'Gay Ray' to Obama and his marijuana smoking 'Choom Gang', was bludgeoned to death with a hammer seven years after he sold the future president and his friends drugs. His lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a laundry list of reasons for the killing, including that Boyer, a surfer and unemployed chef, constantly put him down, made him beg for drugs and had a habit of breaking wind in his face.)

Those WMDs: Tapes from late dictator's archive reveal back-up plans of a chemical attack on Tel Aviv should he be toppled during First Gulf War

(Saddam chokes at one minute and thirtyeight seconds in the video)

Tapes from late dictator's archive reveal back-up plans should he be toppled during First Gulf War

The late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave orders to launch missiles equipped with chemical warheads at Israel should his power be in danger during the First Gulf War, Israel’s Channel 2 reported Friday, based on tapes from Hussein's archives.

According to the report, Hussein stationed missiles armed with chemical weapons at bases across the country and ordered them to be fired at Israel should his regime collapse or he be cut off from his command staff.

A list of strategic targets was drawn up and included, amongst others, Haifa’s leading high-tech university, The Technion, because a teacher at the university had spoken ill of him.

Hussein eventually never launched biological or chemical warheads at Israel “because he never thought he had reached the point that he felt his regime was under threat,” Avner Golov of the Institute of National Security Studies told Channel 2.

Golov analyzed part of Hussein's large audio archive which included many of his meetings with senior Iraqi officials and foreign dignitaries and was captured by the invading US forces in 2003.

During the Gulf War Hussein did however fire 39 Scud missiles armed with conventional warheads at Israel in 199, killing one Israeli. Fears that he might also make use of chemical warheads led to the Israeli authorities distributing gas masks, and instructing people to seal all windows and doorways of their homes when the Scuds were heading toward Israel.

On one of the tapes published by Channel 2, Hussein told the visiting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in April 1990 that “Iraq has chemical weapons, it successfully used against the Iranians” during its eight-year war with Iran, “and Iraq won’t hesitate to use them against Tel Aviv.”

In another recording dated to 1991 Hussein orders his vice president, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, to attack Israeli targets at night. When al-Douri asks whether Hussein is referring to military targets, he replies, “I consider every city in Israel a target.”

Saddam is still held in high regard by some Arabs for his 1980-88 war with Iran, his confrontations with the United States, his strikes against Israel, and his composure during his execution, which was recorded on mobile phone videos.

Hussein's resentment of the Jewish State continued until his death in 2006. Just moments before his execution, while a list of indictments was read to him, Hussein repeated: "Death to America! Death to Israel! Long live Palestine! Death to the Persian magi,” his executioner recalled in an interview with AFP in December 2013.

he like his shishkaboobie well done

(ooh it burns)

Female Palestinian cartoonist threatened after critique of Islamic Jihad, Hamas

(CatFur) The cartoon above was drawn by a woman named Majedah Shaheen. Some of you might figure out that the man in the cartoon is Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas (admittedly it does like very slightly like Mohammed Morsy of Egypt). Unless you read Arabic, you probably don't realize that the dog is meant to be Islamic Jihad's al-Quds brigades. Haniyeh is trying to get al-Quds under control. Neither side was amused and Shaheen has been threatened with death by those nice men with the masks over their heads. The cartoon by Majedah Shaheen depicts Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh asking his dog to “calm down.” The dog represents the Al-Quds Battalions. Following strong condemnations and threats, Shaheen published an apology on her Facebook account. “I wish to apologize for the cartoon I published about Hamas and the Al-Quds Battalions,” she wrote. “My intention was to relay a message in a clear and firm manner. But there are many who prefer to deal with the issue in an artificial manner instead of making an attempt to understand the idea behind it.” The apology has failed to calm many Palestinians, who posted abusive comments against her on Facebook, denouncing her has a “Zionist agent,” “traitor” and “prostitute.”

Yes, MLK really did say the quote that anti-Zionism is anti-semitism

(EOZ)It is always a pleasure to read the work of Martin Kramer, a real scholar, doing real research. This comes from last March:

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“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Aptly quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. is a common way to make a point or win an argument, and it’s no surprise that his new memorial in Washington includes an “Inscription Wall” of quotes carved in stone. It’s also no surprise that the quote about critics of Zionists didn’t make the cut for inclusion in the memorial. Still, it’s been put to use on many an occasion, most recently by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year, in his address to the Knesset on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A few years back it even cropped up in a State Department report on antisemitism. So I was perplexed to see it categorized as “disputed” on the extensive page of King quotes at Wikiquote—for better or worse, the go-to place to verify quotes. Indeed, as of this writing, it’s the only King quote so listed.

The attempt to discredit the quote has been driven by politics. In particular, it’s the work of Palestinians and their sympathizers, who resent the stigmatizing of anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism. Just what sort of anti-Zionism crosses that fine line is a question beyond my scope here. But what of the quote itself? How was it first circulated? What is the evidence against it? And might some additional evidence resolve the question of its authenticity?

King’s words were first reported by Seymour Martin Lipset, at that time the George D. Markham Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard, in an article he published in the magazine Encounter in December 1969—that is, in the year following King’s assassination. Lipset:

Shortly before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Boston on a fund-raising mission, and I had the good fortune to attend a dinner which was given for him in Cambridge. This was an experience which was at once fascinating and moving: one witnessed Dr. King in action in a way one never got to see in public. He wanted to find what the Negro students at Harvard and other parts of the Boston area were thinking about various issues, and he very subtly cross-examined them for well over an hour and a half. He asked questions, and said very little himself. One of the young men present happened to make some remark against the Zionists. Dr. King snapped at him and said, “Don’t talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”

For the next three-plus decades, no one challenged the credibility of this account. No wonder: Lipset, author of the classic Political Man (1960), was an eminent authority on American politics and society, who later became the only scholar ever to preside over both the American Sociological Association and the American Political Science Association. Who if not Lipset could be counted upon to report an event accurately? Nor was he quoting something said in confidence only to him or far back in time. Others were present at the same dinner, and Lipset wrote about it not long after the fact. He also told the anecdote in a magazine that must have had many subscribers in Cambridge, some of whom might have shared his “fascinating and moving” experience. The idea that he would have fabricated or falsified any aspect of this account would have seemed preposterous.

That is, until almost four decades later, when two Palestinian-American activists suggested just that. Lipset’s account, they wrote, “seems on its face… credible.”

There are still, however, a few reasons for casting doubt on the authenticity of this statement. According to the Harvard Crimson, “The Rev. Martin Luther King was last in Cambridge almost exactly a year ago—April 23, 1967″ (“While You Were Away” 4/8/68). If this is true, Dr. King could not have been in Cambridge in 1968. Lipset stated he was in the area for a “fund-raising mission,” which would seem to imply a high profile visit. Also, an intensive inventory of publications by Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project accounts for numerous speeches in 1968. None of them are for talks in Cambridge or Boston.

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When King was assassinated, the Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, did write that he “was last in Cambridge almost exactly a year ago—April 23, 1967.” That had been a very public visit, during which King and Dr. Benjamin Spock held a press conference to announce plans for a “Vietnam Summer.” War supporters picketed King.

But in actual fact, that wasn’t King’s last visit to Cambridge. In early October 1967, when news spread that King would be coming to Boston for the Belafonte concert, a junior member of Harvard’s faculty wrote to King from Cambridge, to extend an invitation from the instructor and his wife:

We would be anxious to be able to sit down and have a somewhat leisured meal with you, and perhaps with some other few people from this area whom you might like to meet. So much has happened in recent months that we are both quite without bearings, and are in need of some honest and tough and friendly dialogue…. So if you can find some time for dinner on Friday or lunch on Saturday, we are delighted to extend an invitation. If, however, your schedules do not permit, we of course will understand that. In any case, we look forward to seeing you at the Belafonte Concert and the party afterwards.

Two days later, King’s secretary, Dora McDonald, sent a reply accepting the invitation on King’s behalf: “Dr. King asked me to say that he would be happy to have dinner with you.” King would be arriving in Boston at 2:43 in the afternoon. “Accompanying Dr. King will be Rev. Andrew Young, Rev. Bernard Lee and I.”

Who was this member of the Harvard faculty? Martin Peretz.

...It was against this background that King came to dinner at the Peretz home at 20 Larchwood Drive, Cambridge, in the early evening of October 27, 1967. A few days later, King’s aide, Andrew Young, thanked the couple

for the delightful evening last Friday. It is almost too bad we had to go to the concert, but I think you will agree that the concert, too, proved enjoyable but I am also sure a couple of hours conversing with the group gathered in your home would have been more productive.

In fact, the evening’s significance would only become evident later, after King’s death. For the dinner was attended by Peretz’s senior Harvard colleague, Seymour Martin Lipset, and it was then and there that Lipset heard King rebuke a student who echoed the SNCC line on “Zionists”: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” Peretz would later assert that King “grasped the identity between anti-Israel politics and anti-semitic ranting.” But it was Lipset who preserved King’s words to that effect, by publishing them soon after they were spoken. (And just to run the contemporary record against memory, I wrote to Peretz, to ask whether the much-quoted exchange did take place at his Cambridge home on that evening almost 45 years ago. His answer: “Absolutely.” )[MORE]