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Alarming numbers of children feel safer in the street when carrying knives or guns, Government inspectors warned today. A top-level report found that many children were still "very worried" about being bullied and were afraid of being on their own in public areas.

Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency. The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food. The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age. It alerts playgroup leaders...

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food. The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age. It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different...

Jawdropper of the Day: Racist Babies Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 9:20:24 am PDT Good grief. Now the British nanny state is actually warning nursery school teachers to be on the lookout for racist babies.============================= "Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency. "The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. "This could include a child of as young as...

"...Fred Wilpon, the owner of the New York Mets... unveiled this July Fourth weekend, is an ambitious effort to raise $100 million to provide free psychological counseling for returning veterans and jobs for those who need them."

Suicides kill more people than homicide and war, namely 1.8% of worldwide deaths! Global suicide rates have increased 60% over the past 45 years and suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth and young adults, aged 10-24. It's also is one of the leading causes of death for adults between the ages of 25-44, with men ranking 75 to 80 %. Socio-psychological studies rate single men as the least emotionally stable, followed by married men, and single women; married women are the most emotionally stable. The current world suicide rate is approximately 1 million per year, or...

Why do people vote? Genetic variation in political participation A groundbreaking new study finds that genes significantly affect variation in voter turnout, shedding new light on the reasons why people vote and participate in the political system. The research, conducted by political scientists James H. Fowler, Christopher T. Dawes (of UC San Diego) and psychologist Laura A. Baker (of University of Southern California), appears in the May issue of the American Political Science Review, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA). "Although we are not the first to suggest a link between genes and political participation," note the...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- asks is, why? In a recent column I offered one explanation -- the impossibly high expectations for happiness that feminism created for many women. There are other possible explanations. One is the way in which many girls have been raised. As every wise person and wise culture in history has known, it...

Drivers who sport bumper and window stickers on their vehicles are more prone to road rage, say researchers at Colorado University. The researchers have released a new study which discovered that motorists with personalized items on a vehicle are more likely to be aggressive drivers. Assessing the behavior of 500 drivers, they found that in the face of provocations such as being stuck in traffic, owners of cars covered with stickers and trinkets -- known as territory markers -- were more likely to act on their anger by flashing lights, tailgating and blocking other drivers. Other major findings: Drivers with...

In his victory speech over Hillary, Barack Obama soared rhetorically about his feelings of humility. And yet he hardly sounded humble: "generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children (with mounting excitement) that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick, and good jobs for the jobless. This was the moment when the riiiiise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal."[bolding added] Now politicians are allowed some rhetorical overkill, but this is straight into Star Wars territory. There are no real precedents for this...

In November 2004, Christian Wheeler stood in line at a local church and waited to cast his ballot in the US presidential election, which pitted President George W. Bush against the democratic candidate, John Kerry. As Wheeler waited, his thoughts began to wander. “I was thinking about the election and how Bush was highly affiliated with religion,” says Wheeler, “and it occurred to me that this church couldn’t possibly be a neutral location. This has to be affecting people’s thoughts.” So Wheeler, a professor of marketing at Stanford University in California, decided to study whether the location of a polling...

On Evil Bethany Stotts, June 23, 2008 Is evil the result of human choice or manufactured by social circumstances? Professor Philip Zimbardo, known for his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, opted for the latter explanation at a recent CATO book forum. Zimbardo told the audience that he believes Lucifer was expelled from heaven not for sinning, but for disobeying an authority figure. “It’s really a story about what happens when you challenge authority—you go to hell,” said the Stanford University professor. The author of The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo believes that any person has the capacity for terrible deeds, torture,...

Denver, CO (AHN) - With soaring gas prices, it is not surprising to hear that incidents of road rage are on the rise. A study by a Colorado State University social psychologist said there is a better predictor of road rage behavior among American motorists. According to William Szlemko, in his recent study published at the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, the more a driver has bumper stickers, window decals, personalized licensed plates and other territorial markers on his vehicle, the greater is his tendency to get mad when someone cuts into his lane. The road anger may be expressed...

What women really want: a touch on the arm By Laura Clout Last Updated: 1:42AM BST 21/06/2008 Scientists have come up with a winning formula for men wishing to seduce women, and it has nothing to do with cheesy chat-up lines or good looks. Research shows that a man can significantly increase his pulling power by simply catching a woman's eye and lightly touching her arm. A study at Aberdeen University found that two-thirds of women agreed to dance with a man who rested his hand on her arm for a second or two while making the request. When the...

We must hold our leaders accountable for the facts on happiness and refuse to take it lightly when politicians abridge the values of faith, work, family, charity, and freedom. -- Arthur C. Brooks

Obsessive internet use is a public health problem which is so serious it should be officially recognised as a clinical disorder, according to a leading psychiatrist. Sufferers spend unhealthy amounts of time playing online games, viewing pornography or emailing. They suffer four symptoms: They forget to eat and sleep; they need more advanced technology or more hours online as they develop 'resistance' to the pleasure given by their current system; if they are deprived of their computer, they experience genuine withdrawal symptoms; And in common with other addictions, the victims also begin to have more arguments, to suffer fatigue, to...

Learning From The Dead: What Facial Muscles Can Tell Us About Emotion ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — Laugh and the world laughs with you, but wrinkle your nose and you could find yourself on your own. A new study by a scientist at the University of Portsmouth who examined the facial muscles in cadavers, has revealed that the muscles which control our facial expressions are not common to everyone. The Risorius muscle, which experts believe controls our ability to create an expression of extreme fear, is found in only two thirds of the population. Dr Bridget Waller has published a...

Don't listen to the liberals - Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows George Orwell once wrote that politics was closely related to social identity. 'One sometimes gets the impression,' he wrote in The Road To Wigan Pier, 'that the mere words socialism and communism draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, nature-cure quack, pacifist and feminist in England'. Orwell was making an observation. But today a whole body of academic research shows he was correct: your politics influence the manner in which you live your life. And the news is not so...

Bikinis and other sexy stimuli can make men more prone to seek immediate gratification — leading to blown diets, budgets and bank accounts, new research suggests.In the study, detailed in the Journal of Consumer Research, men alternately fondled t-shirts and bras (which were not being worn during the test).After touching the bras, men valued the future less and the present more, said lead researcher Bram Van Den Bergh of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Viewing ads with women in bikinis had the same effect.

THE SOCIETY of Nuclear Medicine has been touting a new study that suggests we're one step closer to solving the riddle of social anxiety disorder. Researchers believe the origins of the disorder are biological. This sounds like a breakthrough worth celebrating. "Social anxiety disorder affects approximately 15 million American adults," the press release declares, and is "the third most common mental disorder in the United States, after depression and alcohol dependence." But what are its symptoms? A "fear of being evaluated by others, with the expectation that such an assessment will be negative and embarrassing." Once you start calling fear...

Who Shalt Not Kill? Brain Power Leads To Level-headedness When Faced With Moral Dilemmas ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) — Should a sergeant sacrifice a wounded private on the battlefield in order to save the rest of his troops? Is euthanasia acceptable if it prevents needless suffering? Many of us will have to face some sort of extreme moral choice such as these at least once in our life. And we are also surrounded by less dramatic moral choices everyday: Do I buy the hybrid? Do I vote for a particular presidential candidate? Unfortunately, very little is known beyond philosophical speculation...

BRUCE JANCIN (Denver Bureau) Article Outline • Copyright NEW YORK — Posttraumatic stress disorder and depression are extremely common a full year after hospitalization for injury and are associated with up to a nearly sixfold increased likelihood of failure to return to work, according to the largest-ever U.S. study evaluating the multiple impacts of trauma. The implications of these new findings from the National Study of Costs and Outcomes of Trauma (NSCOT) are profound. With an estimated 2.5 million hospital admissions for injury per year in the United States, the data would suggest 500,000 of these patients will have debilitating...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Long-time homosexual activist Frank Kameny's claim to fame is successfully manipulating the American Psychiatric Association into declassifying homosexuality as a mental disorder, and today the Smithsonian honoree is now busily advocating bestiality "as long as the animal doesn't mind."Kameny, 83, has had a long career advocating the removal of any restrictions on human acts long considered by sane societies as obscene, dangerous, and disordered. However the octogenarian has a new mission to complement his current campaign to pressure the APA to ban reparative therapy for homosexuals. Kameny describes his mission as "Americanism in...

If you want to understand the negative impact of feminism on women (and men) and, by extension, the destructive effects of liberal teachers, Democratic politics and liberal news media on African-Americans, here is Katie Couric last week on the CBS Evening News: "A new study on teens and sexual harassment should give every parent pause. "Most teenage girls report they've been sexually harassed. ... In a study that appeared in the journal Child Development, 90 percent of teen girls say they've been harassed at least once." Millions of American parents and their daughters were told on one of the most...

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage. Weisman, 49, conducted a survey of 1,533 heterosexual men to research a book aiming to give women an insight into why some smart, successful men opted to stay single -- and help lifelong bachelors understand why they are still the solo man at parties. He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage -- but they...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Contrary to popular notions about what is normal or healthy, new research has found that it is okay not to express one's thoughts and feelings after experiencing a collective trauma, such as a school shooting or terrorist attack. In fact, people who choose not to express their feelings after such an event may be better off than those who do talk about their feelings, according to University at Buffalo psychologist Mark Seery, Ph.D., lead author of a study to appear in the June issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The study investigated the mental and...

People with high self-esteem may be more of a threat to society than those with a lower sense of self-worth, according to a controversial 100-page report. Nicholas Emler, Ph.D., a social psychologist at the London School of Economics, found that people with high self-esteem are more likely to be racist, violent and criminal. Low self-esteem increases the risk of eating disorders, suicide and depression, but it is not a factor in delinquency or substance abuse, according to Emler. The study was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the United Kingdom's largest think tank, and is distributed by York Publishing Services....

Presidential PsychosisThe general definition of psychosis is defined as a mental state which is characterized by losing touch with reality, among other things. Many words have been written in the past 16 years or so about our 42nd president and his lawful spouse, and some even touched upon this subject. I hope to add my own observations to this timely topic. If physicists search for a unifying theory to explain the universe, then political scientists should look upon these two denizens of the lowest strata of power hungry crawlers as the political equivalent. The unifying thread is an almost incomprehensible...

In the book “How to Think Like a CEO: The 22 Vital Traits You Need to Be the Person at the Top,” author D.A. Benton created a list of 22 important traits shared by the more than 100 CEOs that she interviewed for the book. When people commonly think of CEOs, they tend to think of very visible corporate leaders like Warren Buffett and Jack Welch. However, CEOs exist in any business operation in which an individual leads a group of employees with the objective of performing at a high level to reach a business goal.

A new study reveals that for teens, it's not whether you're really popular. It's whether you think you are. Perhaps no period of life is more fraught with obsessive worries about popularity, social hierarchies and reputations than that treacherous, three-year period known as middle school. The social anxieties of adolescence have driven plotlines from "The Wonder Years" to "Hannah Montana" where teens and pre-teens spend entire hours and episodes agonizing over what their peers think. Figuring out whether you'll end up being a cool prom king or queen bee--or the kid who eats alone in the cafeteria--is an integral part...

With Age Comes A Sense Of Peace And Calm, Study Shows ScienceDaily (May 19, 2008) — Aging brings a sense of peace and calm, according to a new study from the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Starting at about age 60, participants reported more feelings of ease and contentment than their younger counterparts. Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, professors of sociology, have published the findings in "Age and the Balance of Emotions" in the May 19 issue of Social Science and Medicine. The findings reveal aging is associated with more positive than negative emotions, and...

Follow that fish -- threespine sticklebacks that were used in the experiments For animals that live in social groups, and that includes humans, blindly following a leader could place them in danger. To avoid this, animals have developed simple but effective behaviour to follow where at least a few of them dare to tread – rather than follow a single group member. This pattern of behaviour reduces the risk of imitating maverick behaviour of an individual as the group recognise that consensus is better than following someone that goes it alone. Love personal electronics? Link up with the like...

BOYS who don't play videogames at all are at greater risk of getting into trouble than those who play violent games occasionally, according to two Harvard psychologists. The pair also said there was also no evidence to suggest violent games turn young people into criminals or violent people, despite some media reports. "If you look at the violent crime in the US over the past 20 years among teenagers it's gone down, and gone down significantly, and if you look at videogame play, it's gone up," said Dr Lawrence Kutner and Dr Cheryl Olsen of Harvard Medical School in a...

MARRIAGE is a constant source of joy, but introducing children into the relationship will send your happiness in a downward spiral, a conference has been told. [...] The more kids you had, the sadder you were likely to be, [Harvard psychology professor Daniel] Gilbert said. US and European studies had shown that people's happiness did spike while they were expecting a baby but sharply plummeted after the child was born. The low point came when children reached the ages of 12-16, and recovered only when they had flown the coop, he said. "In reality ... children do seem to increase...

It Might Be True That 'Men Marry Their Mothers' ScienceDaily (May 7, 2008) — Whether a young man's mother earned a college degree and whether she worked outside the home while he was growing up seems to have an effect years later when he considers his ideal wife, according to a study by University of Iowa sociologist Christine Whelan. High-achieving men -- those who earn salaries in the top 10 percent for their age and/or have a graduate degree -- are highly likely to marry a woman whose education level mirrors their mom's. Nearly 80 percent of the high-achieving men...

LONDON, May 5, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the May 2 installment of his regular health feature in The Times, Dr. Thomas Stuttaford responded to a reader who complained of a loss of interest in sex following an abortion. "Though my boyfriend and I agreed it was the right thing to do, I feel guilty and I've gone off sex," wrote the questioner. Dr. Stuttaford responded by saying that loss of libido after an abortion is "so common that it can almost be said to be expected". Asked if the feelings would pass, Stuttaford wrote, "It is possible, but by no...

Gay marriage does not work - men are just too predatory, says Pete BurnsBy JAMES TAPPER - More by this author » Last updated at 22:23pm on 3rd May 2008 Comments When he flashed his engagement ring on the sofa with Richard and Judy, pop star Pete Burns told of his happiness at the prospect of becoming the latest celebrity to marry his male partner. But now, just ten months after the big day, the singer has split from Michael Simpson, saying civil partnerships do not work and that he was happier being married to a woman. Burns, 49, who...

SAN FRANCISCO — When David Bunnell, a magazine publisher who lives in Berkeley, Calif., went to a FedEx store to send a package a few years ago, he suddenly drew a blank as he was filling out the forms. “I couldn’t remember my address,” said Mr. Bunnell, 60, with a measure of horror in his voice. “I knew where I lived, and I knew how to get there, but I didn’t know what the address was.” Mr. Bunnell is among tens of millions of baby boomers who are encountering the signs, by turns amusing and disconcerting, that accompany the decline...

BUENOS AIRES, May 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The eminent Spanish psychiatrist Enrique Rojas gave a speech yesterday in Buenos Aires declaring that homosexuality is "a clinical process that has an etiology, pathogeny, treatment, and cure". Speaking at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair about his book "Goodbye, Depression", Rojas characterized homosexual orientation as a "disorder" rather than an illness, and stated his opinion that 95% of cases are caused by environmental factors, according to the Spanish news service Terra. The disorder, according to Rojas, is the result of an absent father, overweening mother, or sexual abuse in childhood. Rojas blasted...

Deep within our subconscious, all of us harbor biases that we consciously abhor. And the worst part is: we act on them "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life,” Jesse Jackson once told an audience, “than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery—then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Jackson’s remark illustrates a basic fact of our social existence, one that even a committed black civil-rights leader cannot escape: ideas that we may not endorse—for example, that a black stranger might harm us but a...

That this is the age of gullibility is proved by the fact that three of the most absurd frauds in history have become totally accepted and unquestioned in our age. The results of this universal credulity is a social disaster, the affects of which are apparent in every aspect of our culture. If you think something is terribly wrong with the society you live in, but have not been able to identify exactly what it is, this may help you. The Appeal of Science No rational individual either doubts or questions the power of science to discover the truth. Much...

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth. Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught (though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing). But in the new study, researchers describe a method for improving this skill, along with experiments to prove it works. The key, researchers found, was...

Simple brain exercise can boost IQ 22:00 28 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Alison Motluk Can mental training improve your intelligence? No video game or mental puzzle has convincingly been shown to work. But now a group of neuropsychologists claims it has found a task that can add points to a person's IQ – and the harder you train, they say, the more you gain. So-called "fluid intelligence", or Gf, is the ability to reason, solve new problems and think in the abstract. It correlates with professional and educational success and it appears to be largely genetic. Past attempts to...

Athens, Ga. – Oscar Levant, a mid-century pianist, film star and wit, once watched noted keyboardist and composer George Gershwin spend an evening playing his own music at a party and clearly having a great time. “Tell me, George,” Levant said, somewhat jealously, “if you have it to do all over again would you still fall in love with yourself"” Increasingly, psychologists are looking at such behavior and saying out loud what may go against the grain of how many people act: high self-esteem is not the same thing as healthy self-esteem. And new research by a psychology professor from...

Which condiment you favor when you lather your hot dog -- ketchup or mustard -- reveals your politics, according to a noted political scientist. "People who mostly or entirely use ketchup are much more likely to favor the invasion of Iraq than those who use mustard," says Dr. Noah Frum, a senior fellow at the prestigious Institute for Political Advantage think tank. "Red is an aggressive, war-like color, whereas yellow is much more passive and low-key, " he says. Dr. Frum conducted his study when one of the political parties, looking for an advantage in the upcoming November elections, came...

Melanie McGrath reviews The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Difference Between the Sexes by Susan Pinker Why is it that some boys who fail at school or university - Albert Einstein and Bill Gates come to mind - go on to forge spectacular careers while many talented girls never reach the top of the career ladder? Here, in a nutshell, is the paradox explored in the developmental psychologist Susan Pinker's new book. It is time, says Pinker, to stop thinking of men as the 'default' setting and women as variants of the norm, when advances in...

In his book The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud said of religion and morality, "It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and admit the purely human origins of all the precepts and regulations of civilization."  In making this statement, Freud weighed in on one of life's most important questions: What is the nature of right and wrong?  Is it real, something existing apart from man, a reflection of Absolute Truth, of God's will?  Or is it, in accordance with the atheist model, merely a product of mortal minds and thus synonymous with...

Housework helps combat anxiety and depression 19 April 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. FEELING down? You might be able to dust away your distress. Just 20 minutes a week with the vacuum cleaner or mop is enough to help banish those blues, and sport works even better. That's the message from Mark Hamer and his colleagues at University College London, who wanted to find out what benefits arise from different types of physical activity. They examined data from questionnaires filled in by almost 20,000 Scottish people as part of the Scottish Health Surveys, carried out every few years. Some...

I'm a 39-year-old Black man and I'm a racist …against other Blacks no less. Say what? Well, that's what a University Of Chicago online psychological test tells me. (http://backhand.uchicago.edu/Center/ShooterEffect/) ... the online pop psych test presents you with images of 100 Black and white men. Some are armed, while others are carrying nothing more dangerous than a wallet or a cell phone. Unfortunately, if you're a Black man in New York, you're fully aware of the danger of carrying seemingly harmless objects.. From Amadou Diallo, who died after being shot at 41 times by police as he reached for his...

Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more. As many or more report possible brain injuries from explosions or other head wounds, said the study, the first major survey from outside the government. Only about half of those with mental health problems have sought treatment. Even fewer of those with head injuries have seen doctors. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker said the report, from the Rand Corp., was...