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There is a lot of talk about Mr. Obama's character, or lack thereof, these days. He's not a fighter, he's too conciliatory, he's weak, he's unprepared, he's a secret Republican, etc. I have an outside-the-box theory about Obama that may explain all this: Stockholm Syndrome.

Islamic organizations in Russia The first official Islamic organization in Russia appeared in 1788, when by decree of Catherine II was created by the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, engaged in the construction of mosques and marital affairs. However, after the revolution of a mosque in 1917, as the Orthodox Church, were closed, and the clergy was subjected to repression. Many Muslim organizations formed in Central Asia and the North Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War were split during the "perestroika" (1980-1990). In 1994 was created by the Supreme Coordinating Center of Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUMR private commercial enterprise), which lasted four years and in 1998 joined the newly formed Council of Muftis of Russia. On the territory of European Russia and Siberia after the collapse of the Soviet Union announced the creation of new autonomous organizations. In 1996 the First Congress of the leaders of the Muslim Board of Russia, where it was decided to set up the Council of Muftis of Russia. A year later the organization was established Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Asian part of Russia. In 1998, the Conference North spiritual offices in Nazran, it was decided to establish the Higher Coordination Centre of North Caucasus Muslims, some of whose members initially included, also a member of the Council of Muftis of Russia. However, because of the differences, was forced to leave. In 2009-2010, decided to join forces to achieve unity of Russian Muslims and strengthen the traditional Islamic religious principles of the Muslim nation. However, by the great success it has not resulted. To date, the Russian equivalent approved two Muslim organizations that claim to the national character: TsDUM (Central Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia) and CMP (Council of Muftis of Russia). Each of them combines a number of relatively independent of the Spiritual Board of Muslims, based on the principle of administrative division. Beyo

An Army sergeant on Tuesday sued the makers of Oscar-nominated film "The Hurt Locker" five days before the Academy Awards, claiming the central character in the film is based on him. Master Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver believes screenwriter Mark Boal based "virtually all of the situations" in the film on events involving him and claims he coined the phrase "the hurt locker," according to a statement from lawyer Geoffrey Fieger in Southland, Michigan, who is representing Sarver.

"The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society"

Gilens examines the extent to which different social groups find their policy preferences reflected in actual government policy and the variation in these patterns across time and policy domains. For example, when Americans with low and high incomes disagree on policy, are policy outcomes more likely to reflect the preferences of affluent Americans? If so, does the advantage of more affluent Americans differ over time (e.g., depending on which party controls the congress and presidency) or across policy domains? Similarly, are Republicans or Democrats in the population more likely to get the policies they prefer when their party is in control of national political institutions? Because his database contains policy preferences broken down by income, education, partisanship, sex, race, region, religion, and union/non-union status, Gilens will be able to address a multitude of questions concerning government responsiveness to public preferences. For this study, Gilens uses data on public preferences and policy outcomes based on 754 national survey questions from 1992 through 1998 and restrict his attention to divergent policy preferences of low- and high-income Americans. Each of these survey questions asks respondents whether they support or oppose some proposed change in U.S. national policy, and he has used historical information sources to determine whether each proposed change occurred or not (within a four-year coding window from the date of the survey question). When Gilens looks separately at respondents with different incomes, he finds that the higher an individual's income, the more likely it is that government policy will reflect his or her preferences. This relationship, however, does not increase in a linear fashion: the difference between poor and middle-income Americans is modest compared with the difference between those with middle and high incomes. In other words, it is not that the poor are especially less likely than middle-income Americans to get

The people for the ethical treatment of animals have decided that if they get people to start calling fish "sea kittens", people will have trouble telling the difference between their pet cats and the alewives washing up on the beach. Yeah, that will work. They wrote a children's book for this campaign. One of the characters in it, "Tony the Trout", is said to have pursued a double major in neuroscience and environmental studies. Pity he didn't augment the neuroscience with a little psychiatry. Maybe he'd be able to diagnose the problem ailing the person who came up with this campaign.

"Common man" character created by legendary Indian cartoonist icon RK Laxman would live in our heart forever. RK Laxman cartoon collection speak a lot about democracy and no one better than him was able to explain the Indian daily life and politics with cartoons. Legendary Indian cartoonist RK Laxman has died in hospital at the age of 94 following multiple-organ failures.