GERMANS are the most intelligent people in Europe, well ahead of the British and the French, according to a study.
Northern Ireland's University of Ulster found Germans have an average intelligence quotient of 107, a scintilla of brainpower above the Dutch who also scored 107, The Times reported today.
Poles were on 106, Swedes on 104 and Italians on 102.
The British rated eighth with an average IQ of 100.
The Spanish scored 98, Ireland 97, Russia 96 and the French 94.
Serbians languished at the bottom of the table on 89.
The head of the study, Professor Richard Lynn, caused controversy last year by claiming that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average.
He said of his latest findings that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south.
The average brain size in Northern and Central Europe is 1,320cc and in south-east Europe it is 1,312cc, according to his studies.
He described it as "a hitherto unrecognised law of history" that "the side with the higher IQ normally wins, unless they are hugely outnumbered, as Germany was after 1942", The Times reported.
There were also differences in IQ levels within countries with higher scores found on average in big cities.
He said intelligence across Britain could be attributed to bright people moving to London over hundreds of years.
Adults in England and Wales have an IQ of 100, higher than Scotland with 97.
#7
I think problem is that IQ tests measure just one aspect of intelligence - the ability to do well on IQ tests. Most people aren't so much interested in how well you test as how much money you make.
#8
Obviously, there are gross errors in this study. How could Frogs be lowest on the totem pole ? Mebbe this explains why they let Muzzies pour in and take over ?
Testing adults usually is colored by their education and life experiences; testing young children is more likely to get an actualy IQ.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/27/2006 14:44 Comments ||
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#11
Actually, I thought the most intelligent were those like my ancestors who were smart enough to get the hell out of the place before the locals set fire to it in 1914.
#14
What fun! Unless the tests were done in the original full format (which tests several different kinds of intelligence, and takes all day) at best the results will be within a range of +-20 points of actual. Children's results do tend to be less skewed by environment and experience than do those of adults... for adults, as with most standard achievement tests, experience taking similar tests can increase an individual's test score 10-20 points. All of which places all the results quoted in the article within the variability of the test. Which makes the results meaningless, and demonstrates those who take such things seriously to be pseudointellectuals at best. (Sorry -- Mama spent the better part of my youth studying and applying this kind of stuff to the mentally retarded, multiply handicapped children and adults for whom she developed occupational therapy, work and education programs, which is why I've never been able to take my own test results quite seriously (but at least it seems sure that my own lacks are due to other causes).)
#18
Lets all watch PEPE LE PEU wear a Foreign Legion uniform like Beu Geste, and then take out a cigarrette to smoke wid attitude like a true soldat le'Francais.
The leading opposition party in Ukraine has alleged that the general elections have been marred by irregularities and poor organisation as the first exit polls came in. The first exit poll published after voting ended on Sunday showed a lead for the Russian-backed opposition led by Viktor Yanukovich, the former prime minister.
But the Party of the Regions says a lack of polling stations and polling booths prohibited many voters from casting their ballot. Vasili Dzarty a spokesman for the Party of the Regions, said: "It is obvious that the people in power are trying to do everything to make sure that people do not vote." Our Ukraine party is the ruling party. "They are scared of losing," he said.
The opposition Timoshenko bloc has also cited irregularities. Aleksander Turchino, the spokesman for the Timoshenko Bloc, said: "In some places too there weren't enough ballot boxes either and they have already all been filled."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2006 00:00 ||
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The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation's new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the Internet. In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person's Web site.
The decision means that bloggers and online publications will not be covered by provisions of the new election law. Internet bloggers and individuals will therefore be able to use the Internet to attack or support federal candidates without running afoul of campaign spending and contribution limits. "It's a win, win, win," Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub said, adding that the rule would satisfy concerns of campaigns, individuals and the Internet community about whether the campaign finance law applies to Internet political activity.
The commission was forced to act after a federal court ruled that the FEC must extend some of the campaign financial and spending limits to political activity on the Internet. The 2002 law requires that campaign ads for federal candidates be paid for with money regulated by the law, which limits contributions by individuals to $2,000 and bans union and corporation donations. In its initial interpretation of the law in 2002, the FEC said no political activity on the Internet was covered. But a federal court judge ruled in 2004 that the commission had to craft a new rule that at the very least covered paid political advertising on the Internet.
The ruling, and the commission's decision not to appeal it, sparked fears among some Internet users that the panel might adopt broader restrictions. But FEC Chairman Michael E. Toner said the new rules give a "categorical and unqualified" exemption for all individual and group political activity on the Internet, except for paid advertising. "The law was never intended to regulate private citizen communication on the Internet," said Commission Vice Chairman Robert D. Lenhard. "I believe that we have achieved that goal today."
Commissioners said the new rule also specifically changes several other FEC regulations to make it clear that Internet activity, such as blogging, e-mail communications and online publications, is not covered by the campaign law.
For example, the rule says individuals can use union or corporate computers or other electronic devices for political activity, as long they do it on their own time and are not coerced to engage in such activity by the union or corporation. Bloggers would be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive. "There will be no second class citizens among members of the media," Toner said.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/27/2006 13:27 ||
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MIANWALI: A marriage party returned without brides, as the cleric refused to sermonise nikah of two former vani women despite their khula from the Family Court.
Got all that? The nikah's the marriage ceremony. Vani is where young women or girls are given in marriage as boot to seal a deal, usually unsavory. Khula is a civil or judicial (vice religious) divorce. And now for the background...
In April 1985, Daudkhel police registered a case against Amanullah Khan, son of Sher Muhammad Khan, for killing Attaullah Khan, the son of Alam Khan, over a land dispute.
Got all that? Daudkhels are a Pashtun subtribe, which explains why Amanullah's violent instincts overtook him and he bumped off Attaullah, who's now been moulderin' in the grave for 21 years...
Amanullah absconded court for four years before being arrested.
That's 17 years ago...
Mianwali sessions court judge sentenced him to death.
"It's the high jump for you, Attaullah!"
"I'm Amanullah, yer honor! Attaullah's the dead guy!"
"Kinda like what you're gonna be?"
Before his execution, elders and friends persuaded the aggrieved family to accept Rs 250,000 dyat
... that'd be wehrgeld, or blood money...
and two vani girls for marrying the sons of the deceased.
... that'd be the underage nooky, to seal the deal.
Elders sermonised their nikah of Kalsoom Bibi with Ikramullah Khan and Nusrat Bibi, 8, with Shafaullah, 12, in 1990, after which the convict, Amanullah, was freed.
So now we're up to 16 years ago, and Kalsoom and Nusrat, probably both in the full bloom of pre-pubescent tribal womanhood at age 8, are married to two likely young relatives of Ataullah, neither of whom had anything to do with murder most foul.
The girls stayed at their parents house, as they were young at that time.
Too young to actually get into...
By the time, the girls graduated from the local college, while the grooms never went to school.
Spent their time down at the mosque, talking about jihad and showing off their guns and such, I guess...
After the girls graduated, grooms family asked the girls parents to fulfill their promise, but the girls refused to marry illiterate men.
Wanted the manage the girlies' careers for 'em...
The girls went to police to save themselves from becoming the victim of vani.
"We're gonna be stuck with those losers?"
The girls said they went to police to seek protection, as the grooms had threatened to kidnap them.
"Yaaarrrr! We're claimin' our property!"
The grooms filed suits in the Family Court, which dismissed the suit and freed the girls under khula.
"Right. Them. With you. Bailiff! Throw the losers out!"
Elders again intervened to resolve the problem, as the grooms family demanded Rs 700,000 diyat to free the girls.
"We can't have 'em? Well, we can still manage their money. Give it to us."
The grooms family said they would avenge the death of Attaullah if they were not compensated.
"Pay up, or we bump somebody off!"
The girls parents after khula from the court arranged their marriage with other people, but at the time of nikah, the cleric refused to sermonise the nikah, saying that the girls could not have another nikah. He did not accept khula orders, saying the Family Court was not Qazi courts.
"Nope. You gotta have a turban to divorce people. Everybody knows that."
People say the incident should be a revelation for human right activist, who should act against vani to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. People demanded the National Assembly enact laws against such customs.
Right. That fundos are gonna let that happen.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2006 00:00 ||
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The courts in Khanpur are to soon decide the case of Aisha Parveen, 20, and the decision could mean life or death for her, reports the New York Times. Ms Parveen ... is steeling herself for a state-administered horror. Just two months after she escaped from the brothel in which she was tortured and imprisoned for six years, the courts are poised to hand her back to the brothel owner, writes Nicholas D Kristof.
Pakland is crawling with holy men, who're against sin and obscenity in every form. Yet somehow the country seems to have enough whorehouses per capita that the macs have to go out conking young girls on the head to drag them back to their genuine dens of iniquity.
Parveen says she was 14 when she was hit on the head while walking to school in NWFP. She awoke to find herself imprisoned in a whorehouse brothel hundreds of miles away, in the town of Khanpur. Parveen fought back and refused to sleep with customers, but she says the brothel owner - Mian Sher - beat and sexually tortured her, and regularly drugged her so she would fall unconscious and customers could do with her as they liked.
Doesn't everybody like to doink women when they're comatose? Only thing better is when they've been dead more than 24 hours and the rigor mortis has worn off...
This went on for six years, during which she says she was beaten every day. The girls in the brothel were forced to sleep naked at night, so that they would be too embarrassed to try to escape. Parveen says she believes that two of them, Malo Jan and Suwa Tai, were killed after they repeatedly refused to sleep with customers. In any case condoms were never available, so all the girls may eventually die of AIDS.
They're not human, of course. They're just flesh, receptacles for male bodily fluids, kind of like a public toilet with feet.
Kristof says of his meeting with Mian Sher, He denied kidnapping Parveen, saying that he had married her six years earlier. He also denied that he pimped the girls - a claim undermined by a customer who was walking out of his brothel as I arrived. Others working in the area said that Mian Sher unquestionably ran a brothel. In January, Parveen got a break. A metalworker, Mohamed Akram, had been doing work in the brothel, and he fell in love with her. On January 5, Parveen escaped with Akram and they married the next day.
And now Mian Sher's got her in court, trying to get his property back.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/27/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan also allows workers to be indentured, or enslaved until debts are paid off. However, the racist Punjabi majority will not tolerate minority indenture of the master race. Read this article on modern-slavery in the terrorist entity of Pakistan.
http://ipoaa.com/pakistan_slave_trade.htm
...Worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster "Pastafarianism" as it is known to its adherents began as a whimsical side dish in last year's standoff between advocates of evolution and intelligent design. FSM, as it is known to its followers, took shape in a protest letter to Kansas officials who were embroiled in a controversy about how to teach students about the origins of life. The parody religion leapt from those pages to become an Internet phenomenon, finding fans among supporters of the theory of evolution and receiving e-mailed threats of bodily harm from evolution's opponents.
"I wrote the letter for my own amusement as much as anything. And it totally snowballed. Some people say I'm going to hell," says FSM's 25-year-old creator, Bobby Henderson, who recently moved from Oregon to Arizona, partly to escape the uproar. But his paperback testament, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster ($13.95, Villard), which arrives Tuesday, reveals the tenets of the parody religion. A few of them:
A "Flying Spaghetti Monster" created the universe, Earth and its creatures, making a few mistakes on the way after drinking heavily from heaven's beer volcano.
The FSM hid dinosaur fossils underground to "dupe mankind" about Earth's true age and is the secret force behind gravity, pushing everything downward with its "noodly appendage."
The FSM wants everyone to talk and dress like pirates. Global warming is considered a punishment for the relative scarcity of pirates these days.
Every Friday is a sloth-filled holy day. Instead of "amen," devotees end missives with "R'amen," in honor of the college student's favorite noodle fare... Please note that, in defiance of scripture, I am not wearing a Pirate outfit as I am posting this. Nor am I dressed as a Ninja.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The leading opposition party in Ukraine has alleged that the general elections have been marred by irregularities and poor organisation as the first exit polls came in. The first exit poll published after voting ended on Sunday showed a lead for the Russian-backed opposition led by Viktor Yanukovich, the former prime minister.
MIANWALI: A marriage party returned without brides, as the cleric refused to sermonise nikah of two former vani women despite their khula from the Family Court.
The courts in Khanpur are to soon decide the case of Aisha Parveen, 20, and the decision could mean life or death for her, reports the New York Times. Ms Parveen ... is steeling herself for a state-administered horror. Just two months after she escaped from the brothel in which she was tortured and imprisoned for six years, the courts are poised to hand her back to the brothel owner, writes Nicholas D Kristof.
