The number of Americans who die in horrific acts of multiple and even mass murder have risen in recent years despite an otherwise dramatic decline in homicide rates nationwide.

According to recently released FBI statistics, homicides involving two or more victims rose from 1,360 incidents in 2008 to 1,428 incidents last year. That’s a 5 percent increase even though homicides, overall, dropped nearly 7 percent.

“This is all part of the economic downturn,” concluded retired FBI agent Mark Safarik, who investigated mass murderers at the bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Va. “When the economy drops as precipitously as it has in the last few years, many men simply can’t stand it. They can’t hold a job, they are going into bankruptcy or foreclosure, and they snap.”

These crimes with terrifying body counts are somewhat more likely to be solved than single-victim homicides, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study of more than 525,000 homicide records provided by the FBI and by local police departments.

Police were able to identify the suspects in 70 percent of all homicide cases. The rate of identification was 71 percent among multiple-victim killings and 78 percent among mass killings.

Data on mass murders for 2009 are not yet available, but these killings involving four or more victims have been rising slightly in recent years. For the three-year period 2006 to 2008, an annual average of 163 Americans perished in acts of mass killing, up from the annual average of 161 during the 1980s.

The upward trends in multiple and mass murder are in stark contrast to the huge drop in single-victim murder, which has declined more than 40 percent since 1980.

A major reason, experts say, is that mass murders and single-victim murders are committed by very different people.

“Mass murder is different from single-victim murders. They are more likely to be committed by white, middle-aged men,” said Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin, who has published several books on serial and mass killers. “And most mass killers don’t kill randomly. They have certain people they blame for all of the problems in their life.”

The worst mass killing so far this year demonstrates the rage many men feel. Omar Thornton killed eight co-workers at a Hartford, Conn., beer distribution warehouse on Aug. 3 when he was forced to resign after surveillance video showed he’d stolen beer from the company. He took his own life as police began swarming the building.

“They treat me bad over here,” Thornton told 911 operators shortly before putting a Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol to his own head. “So I took it into my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have gotten more people.”

That sense of remorseless vengeance echoed in Oklahoma City federal building bomber Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 killed 168 people in America’s deadliest domestic act of terrorism.

“I am sorry these people had to lose their lives. But that’s the nature of the beast,” McVeigh said in a 2001 letter to The Buffalo (N.Y.) News. He was lashing out at what he believed were tyrannical policies of the federal government.

From 1980 to 2008, at least 4,685 people have perished in 965 reported incidents of mass murder involving at least four fatalities committed during the same incident. Multiple homicides involving at least two victims took 44,163 lives in 19,568 incidents.

In cases in which police identify the offender, 49 percent of the perpetrators in single-victim homicides were whites, while whites accounted for 61 percent of mass homicides. Blacks account for 49 percent of single-victim killings and 35 percent of mass killings.

The victims of mass murder tend to be a cross section of the U.S. population. About 70 percent of mass murder victims are white, compared to only 50 percent of victims of single-person killings. Women accounted for more than 40 percent of mass murder victims, up from about 20 percent of single-victim killings.

The study was based on records obtained from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, a voluntary program in which not all police departments participate.

Using local Freedom of Information Act laws, Scripps Howard obtained 15,322 detailed records of homicides that were not reported to the FBI from police departments in Florida and the District of Columbia.

These additional records included 37 mass killings of 165 people and 793 multiple killings of 1,786 people that were not reported to federal authorities.

Now you can have fun online too and maybe even win some real money withonline slot games.

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A website aimed at African-Americans has some people unhappy about their meals.

“Like the unique African Baobab tree, which nourishes its community with its leaves and fruit, McDonald’s has branched out to the African-American community — nourishing it with valuable programs and opportunities.”

To be honest, we can’t really see why this is causing so much outrage. The fact is that there are baobabs in parts of Africa and they do nourish their community. Of course, we don’t think McDonalds provides the same sort of nourishment, instead it makes it’s customers fat and unhappy. We do like the opportunities it provides for it’s employees though. Did you know the head chef at McDonalds makes more than just about every other chef in the world? We are not joking by the way.

In other business news, Yahoo, the American search engine giant has acquired Maktoob, the Arab search and internet services giant.

Yahoo has just officially acquired Maktoob, a very popular Arabic web portal that offers services including search, payments, social network, and auctions. Rumors of an aquisition have been building for months, and in the last hour they reached a head as news of an impending press conference broke. The price hasn’t been announced, but our sources say $85 million.

The MaktoobBusiness Twitter acccount notes that the deal will unite “Yahoo’s 20 million users from the Arab world with Maktoob’s 16 million”, with Vice President Ahmed Nassef stating that it will bring “a sea change in the industry.”

Maktoob launched in the late 90’s as the first free Arabic Email service provider. Since then it has grown to encompass a variety of services, including payments, gaming, search, and auctions. According to comScore, Maktoob has seen very impressive growth over the last year, growing from 6 million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21.8 million a year later. Likewise, its page views have grown from 406 million to 1.1 billion over the same time frame.

We dont’ find this story particularly scary or funny, we just find it interesting. There is of course a next to nothing probability that yahoo will cobrand itself in America with Maktoob though since there is still a high degree of prejudice against Arabs in the USA.

We are very relieved that the Danish authorities take public safety seriously.

This poster translates as:

“A walking helmet is a good helmet”
“Traffic safety isn’t just for cyclists. The pedestrians of Denmark actually have a higher risk of head injury. The Danish Road Safety Council recommends walking helmets for pedestrians and other good folk in high risk groups.”

from Copenhagenize

We only wish that a helmet could have saved Director John Hughes. Hughes is beloved among Scary Arab Clowns for his groundbreaking works “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and Weird Science.

In other science news, scientists have proven that Aesop didn’t really make up his stories at all:

For instance, the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.)

Now, scientists report that some relatives of crows called rooks used the same stone-dropping strategy to get at a floating worm. Results of experiments with three birds were published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology.

Rooks, like crows, had already been shown to use tools in previous experiments.”

No word on whether rabbits really have races with hares or if foxes become bitter at not being able to reach sweet delicious grapes.

One thing is for sure though, Saudis really like to live it up!

A Saudi businessman has purchased what is being described by the Canadian seller as the world’s most expensive adult novelty item — a solid 18-carat gold penis enlarger worth nearly 50,000 dollars.

X4 Labs, a Canadian manufacturer of medical devices, received the unorthodox request and recruited a Montreal custom jeweler to help with its design and construction.

“This male health accessory is the most expensive traction device ever produced and will likely become a historical benchmark for the adult novelty industry,” the company said in a statement.

Little is known about the buyer, except that he lives in Jeddah.

His glitzy new penis enlarger, however, is being encrusted at his request with 40 diamonds and several rubies and is to be delivered by armored car in October, said Rick Oh, X4 Labs co-owner.

Saudi law bans the import of adult sex toys, but the company insists its product is a US government certified medical device.

Such devices normally retail for less than 400 dollars. But this custom order is expected to cost about 47,000 dollars US, Oh said.

“It’s an unusual request,” Oh told AFP. “We didn’t take it seriously at first, but once he sent us a deposit, we had to agree to it.”

“Obviously, there were giggles initially when we presented our project to a jeweler and asked him for help.”

But the seemingly lavish device was actually conceived for a practical purpose, Oh explained. “We were approached by the customer who insisted on a solid gold version of our product because he claimed to have a severe skin allergy to stainless steel.”

Later, the buyer asked to add diamonds and rubies to it.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton made a surprise visit to North Korea on Tuesday to try to win the release of two jailed American journalists, and met the country’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-il.

Some analysts said the visit, which U.S. officials insisted was a private one, could mark the isolated state’s return to talks over nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s KCNA news agency also said that Clinton, who had dinner with Kim, passed on a verbal message from U.S. President Barack Obama but gave no details. Washington said that no such message had been relayed.

“Kim Jong Il expressed thanks for this,” KCNA said of the message. “He welcomed Clinton’s visit to the DPRK (North Korea) and had an exhaustive conversation with him. There was a wide-ranging exchange of views on the matters of common concern.”

The White House also appeared to play down speculation about a possible breakthrough in U.S.-North Korean relations by characterizing Clinton’s trip as private.

“While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

Clinton’s trip followed months of military provocations by the impoverished North, which has turned its back on negotiations with regional powers, including the United States and China, to convince it to give up ambitions to build an atomic arsenal.

We’re not certain of what the fate of the two journalists is, but we think of it somewhat like this:

Also, we’re not too sure what racial epithet to call North Koreans so we paid a visit to the big List of Racial Epithets, the only trouble is we had so much fun there we forgot why we originally visited.

S

Sand Nigger
(U.S.) A derogatory or pejorative term for any person of middle eastern descent.[123] ;Sawney : (England, archaic) – A Scottish person, local variant of Sandy, short for “Alexander”.[124] ;Seppo, Septic : (Australian) An American. (Cockney rhyming slang: Septic tank — Yank)[125] ;Skip : (AUS) a colloquial term for Australians of Northern European (i.e., Anglo, Celtic, Dutch, German or Scandinavian) descent. Among people of Mediterranean descent, used as a derogatory counter to “wog” which was used to refer to the first wave of post-WW II immigrants of Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European origin. [From the TV show Skippy the Bush Kangaroo].[126] ;Slope, slopehead, slopy, slopey : (U.S. & Aus) a person of Asian (in Australia, especially Vietnamese; in America, especially Chinese) descent.[127] ;Smoked Irish / smoked Irishman : (U.S.) 19th century term for Blacks (intended to insult both Blacks and Irish).[128] ;Snowback : (U.S.) A Canadian immigrant.[129] (presumably akin to “wetback”, a U.S. derogatory term for an individual, usually of Mexican or other Central/South American origin, that illegally enters the U.S across its border with Mexico by wading or swimming the Rio Grande.) ;Snow Nigger, Snow Mexican : (U.S.) A Russian or other snow-dwelling non-American. May also refer to Eskimos (Inuit or Yupik). ;Sooty : a black person [originated in the U.S. in the 1950s][130] ;Spade : A black person.[131] recorded since 1928 (OED), from the playing cards suit. ;Spaghetti Bender: (North America and UK) an Italian[132] ;Spaghetti Nigger: (North America) an Italian[133][134] ;spic, spick, spik, spig, or spigotty : (U.S, U.K) a. a person of Hispanic descent, or a person of actual or presumed Puerto Rican origin whether or not of Hispanic descent. Use of the word is often perceived as extremely offensive if used by a person not of Latino descent in any context. Origin uncertain. First recorded use in 1915. Theories include from “no spik English”, but common belief is that it is an abbreviation of “Hispanic” b. the Spanish language.[135] ;Spook : (U.S. whites) a black person (used in the movies Taxi Driver and Back to the Future[136]. Its ambiguity – another meaning being a spectre – is an essential part of the plot of Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain) ;Squaw : (U.S. & CAN) Often offensive term for female Native American.[137] The equivalent derisive for a male is “a brave”.

Finally though, we drug ourselves away and managed to get distracted again by this garden of erotic sculpture.

Israel’s second largest bank will be forced to defend itself in court in the coming weeks over claims it is withholding tens of millions of dollars in “lost” accounts belonging to Jews who died in the Nazi death camps.

Bank Leumi has denied it holds any such funds despite a parliamentary committee revealing in 2004 that the bank owes at least $75 million to the families of several thousand Holocaust victims.

Analysts said the bank’s role is only the tip of an iceberg in which Israeli companies and state bodies could be found to have withheld billions of dollars invested by Holocaust victims in the country — dwarfing the high-profile reparations payouts from such European countries as Switzerland.

“All I want is justice,” said David Hillinger, 73, whose grandfather, Aaron, died in Auschwitz, a Nazi camp in Poland. Lawyers are demanding reparations of $100,000 for Bank Leumi accounts held by his father and grandfather.

The allegations against Bank Leumi surfaced more than a decade ago following research by Yossi Katz, an Israeli historian.

Read the rest of this story here

Of course, we understand that many Christians feel that the Jews will fight the final battle against their Devil in the end times, so perhaps that means they are worth keeping around for a while. Personally, we have no problem with either Jews or Christians, we simply hold onto our wallets when we see the star of David or the outline of the fish.

And in terms of political dealings, we trust neither but have to deal since the United States and Israel are the two largest arms dealers in the world. They sell weapons to everyone, including us.

How many fingers does the Dutch Boy Have?
Good Old JP Morgan

Can you say illuminati?

Among the six largest U.S. banks, JPMorgan is the only one not to lose money in any quarter since the recession began in 2007.

JPMorgan Chase & Co said record investment banking fees helped drive a 36 percent rise in quarterly profit, topping Wall Street forecasts, but warned that credit quality in consumer mortgages and credit cards is deteriorating faster than it expected.

Though the second-largest U.S. bank is widely considered among the healthiest of the nation’s major lenders, the amount set aside for bad loans in the quarter more than doubled from a year earlier, to $9.7 billion.

It said a surge in credit card and loan losses was likely to worsen.

As for those of you who are not JP Morgan, well, we think you are probably fucked. We expect the recession to continue for the next three years and we see a major correction coming in October/November of 2009. Foreclosures in the USA will continue to rise and the analysts and government will continue to express their surprise at the numbers.

U.S. home foreclosure activity galloped to a record in the first half of the year, overwhelming broad efforts to remedy failing loans while job losses escalated.

Foreclosure filings jumped to a record 1.9 million on more than 1.5 million properties in the first six months of the year, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

The number of properties drawing filings, which include notices of default and auctions, jumped 9.0 percent from the second half of 2008 and almost 15 percent from the first half of last year.

“Despite everybody’s best efforts to date we’re not really making any headway against the problem,” Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

Problems emanating from loans made when standards were much looser have taken a back seat to defaults stemming from job losses and wage cuts.

“Unemployment-related foreclosures account for much of this increased activity, and the high number of borrowers who find themselves owing more on their mortgages than their homes are now worth represent a potentially significant future risk,” James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac chief executive, in a statement.

So let’s think about this for a second. More people are losing their jobs, not making their housing payments, losing their houses, or losing the equity in their houses, not spending and thus not supporting other businesses, creating layoffs where people can’t make their housing payments….yes, this is a viscous circle.

We see credit card and student loan default rising to levels that no one is willing to talk about at the moment. We suspect that many state governments are trying to figure out how to take federal tax dollars in order to meet increasingly out of control budgets. We also are certain that even though it is fiscal mismanagement and choking bureaucracies that have bankrupted many of the states, that the victims will be social programs. Not only does business in the Western World no longer feel a responsibility for employees, but we are also seeing government stepping back from responsibility to its citizens.

California, which would be the world’s eighth largest economy if it were an independent nation, has issued IOUs to vendors as well as taxpayers owed refunds to save cash for servicing of state bonds and other priorities payments.

We also expect that inflation is coming to a store near you very soon. We expect that as these problems continue in the U.S. that the value of the dollar will plummet and that a secondary world currency will arise. We are fairly certain that it will not be the Euro though since the Euro was constructed by U.S. economists who engineered a back door into it so that they could deflate it at will. At the moment there are many competing interests who are trying to create a world currency. We are certain that it will happen within the next 20 years. Our instincts tell us that the new currency will be dominated by China, Canada, and Russia.

The shattered housing market and the weak labor market are going hand in hand, and as more Americans lose their homes, a robust consumer-lead economic recovery looks less likely.

And here we see a sign of inflation that no one expected:

A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars.

Josh Muszynski (Moo-SIN’-ski) checked his account online a few hours later and saw the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).

Muszynski says he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers and the $15 overdraft fee.

Iran’s religious leaders are reportedly discussing the creation of an alternative form of government that would replace the supreme leader with a collective leadership body, according to Al Arabiya news channel. Iran installed a supreme leader following the 1979 Islamic revolution and only two men have held the post Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current leader.

We are excited for the Iranian people but heavily grieved about the loss of life and liberty that many have already suffered. We hope and pray that Allah in all his merciful wisdom will look on the courage and determination of the Iranian people and reward them with a better life. Frankly though, we are worried that there is not really a better system ahead for the Iranians. Imagine to deal with such a jihad (that is a struggle) and then to find yourself with a government that is the same, or worse. As an example we might point to the various French Revolutions or the Soviet Union. We hope that this does not happen and we watch with the rest of the world and feel rage as we learn more about Neda. We agree with Vago that it is unnecessary to show her death again and again. If this were a white girl, it would never have been shown and never discount the power of storytelling. Joan of Arc was not killed on video.

We are also continuing to monitor the situations in Pakistan where the taliban have said they would use a nuke if they had one and in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan things continue to be chaotic at best..

We are not Christians but we are familiar with the revelations of the Prophet Danial and we think that right now, things would probably be scaring the crap out of us if we were Christian Fundamentalist Clowns.

Nearby in central Asia, Russia and the U.S. continue the great game in maintaining the balance of power. The major pawn in all of this is Kyrgyzstan, where both countries maintain air bases. The U.S. was evicted and supposed to leave August 4th, but Obama’s smile and $60 Million dollars may let the Americans stay longer.

The Great Game was a term used for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 a second, less intensive phase followed.

The term “The Great Game” is usually attributed to Arthur Conolly, an intelligence officer of the British East India Company’s Sixth Bengal Light Cavalry. It was introduced into mainstream consciousness by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim

H1N1 is not gone. In fact, it just closed the Philippine Congress when a 46 year old staff member died of the virus.

And we are pleased with the French President (a rare statement from us) in his drive to ban the burka from France. Frankly, we like to see who we are talking to and if you are so ugly or so beautiful that you need to cover up completely, we can help ‘clown you up’. However, if there is another move to ban turbans or hijabs, you can be sure that we will protest with the world.

This:

or This:

Also in France, we are pleased to hear of crocodiles.

A French village is on the alert after several sightings of a crocodile were reported in a local pond and police and local anglers have joined the hunt for the elusive creature dubbed the “Loch Ness monster of the Vosges.”

Xertigny, a village of some 3,000 inhabitants in the Vosges region in eastern France, has been transfixed by the unexplained sightings and sightseers have regularly gathered by the water’s edge to follow the hunt.

A chicken has been left by the waterside to attract the animal but so far, it has escaped capture and local authorities are considering draining the pool.

“We have been around the pond several times and you can’t really say if anything is there,” said Bruno Aime, vice president of a local anglers’ association, told France Info radio after using a special sonar device to investigate.

“I think it’s carp but it could also be a caiman of about 1.50 meters. The equipment doesn’t let you see the difference between a pike of a meter long and a caiman of 1.50 meters,” he told France Info radio.

Crocodiles are found only in zoos and parks in France.

That’s all for now. Allah hu Akbar and Good Day!